Tour of Flanders is a Monument among Monuments. Aside from Paris-Roubaix, it is regularly the year’s most anticipated one-day race. But, with cycling’s Big Four set to show up on the same start line for the first time in years, the usual hype has hit overdrive.
Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel are talking up Remco Evenepoel. Remco Evenepoel is talking up Remco Evenepoel. Wout van Aert is denying he’s even a threat. And Patrick Lefevere is, as usual, throwing wild haymakers from the sidelines just because he can.
A title fight turns into a cage match
Flanders was, until late this week, touted as a re-match between Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel. A title fight between cycling’s giants. That narrative was thrown into upheaval when Remco Evenepoel made his surprise announcement that he would make his Flanders debut this Sunday. In the aftermath, the media is having an absolute heyday as friendly rivalries turn heated.
Pogačar and van der Poel are both talking up Evenepoel’s chances. Van der Poel told Wielerflits Evenepoel should not be underestimated. Pogačar, told Sporza in a press conference of his own, complimented the Red Bull rider’s penchant for unpredictable, long distance attacks, saying “If you let him lead with a few seconds advantage, it might become impossible to catch him back” and calling him an “added stress factor.” Is that because, despite an underwhelming spring so far, the Belgian a legitimate threat to the two most dominant cyclists potentially of all time? Or because it takes some pressure off of each of them? Who knows. It could be both.
Remco Evenpoel, for his part, isn’t being timid about his debut at Ronde van Vlaanderen. Despite the towering stature of his competition, and their proven ability to win this race that he’s never even started, the double Olympic champion made a huge deal of his own starting announcement. With a glitzy video, complete with celebrity appearances, a surprise announcement revealing months of secret(-ish) training, the Belgian knows he has the weight of a nation riding on his result and, instead of playing that down, is leaning in. It’s thrilling stuff.
The other big Belgian, Wout van Aert, is spending his final few days before Flanders talking down his own chances. The impressive rider, with impressively bad luck with crashes and second places, is denying that he’s even part of the so-called “Big Four.” He isn’t arguing he doesn’t have a chance. Van Aert also said his second at Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday shows he has the form to step up on Sunday. But, unlike his compatriot, he’s also trying to redirect the spotlight onto his rivals instead of taking more pressure on himself.
Lefevere’s side show takes the shine of Evenepoel’s debut
Then there’s Lefevere. The always-outspoken former manager of Evenepoel’s former team is using his column in Het Nieuwsblad to throw haymakers at his former protégé.
Lefevere started by saying “I told him for years that he should ride Flanders, but back then he didn’t want to,” though that statement came with numerous qualifiers that stopped well short of saying Evenepoel was actually encouraged, or even allowed to target the Monument.
When Evenepoel argued back against that, Lefevere, as predictable as the sun rising, decided to escalate. He attacked Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s handling of the surprise reveal. While it thrilled fans, the team’s staunch denials in the days before did irk some journalists. Lefevere took this as a chance to take a jab at Evenepoel (and, because why not, a backhanded jab at those same journalists).
“I don’t want to be too harsh about it, but you have to be careful about lying to journalists,” Lefevere wrote in his column, which seems a bit more like a Lady Whistledown letter this week than sports commentary. “I’ve never done it, and certainly not as blatantly as Evenepoel and his team have in recent months, weeks and even days. There used to be a kind of code of honour that you didn’t deceive each other too much. Lying is dangerous. There are journalists with long memories and a thin skin.”
Whether true or not, the Lefevere circus is definitely an unwelcome distraction for Evenepoel and taking the shine off of his carefully cultivated Flanders debut hype. It’s hard not to see Lefevere starting this sideshow now, instead of on Monday, as a petty jab at a rider he didn’t want to let go of.
Pogačar draws Vingegaard into the fray
Beyond Flanders, Pogačar is using this spotlight to extend a friendly invitation to Jonas Vingegaard to join the Classics party. Who, other than Vingegaard himself, wouldn’t want to see the Grand Tour-focused Dane step out of his comfort zone and bring his rivalry with Pogačar out of the mountains and onto the cobbles?
“With the kind of shape he is in at the Tour, I think he can race for the victory in the biggest Classics of the year,” Pogačar said in the same team press conference, adding that he’s said as much directly to Vingegaard as far back as 2023.
Pogačar is known for his light touch with the media, so that could just be fun. It could also be a pointed reminder to the Dane that, while Vingegaard’s planned his entire year around a Tour de France re-match with his Slovenian rival, Pogačar has the time and energy for several other rivalries before he gets back to his battle with the Visma racer. Or it could be both.
How to watch the mayhem from Canada
There are, of course, more than four racers that will start Tour of Flanders on Sunday. While the four above are certainly favourites, the media circus has a way of opening up opportunities for those out of the spotlight to take a potentially winning chance on Sunday. The could include several Canadians across the women’s and men’s races.
Whatever unfolds on Sunday, it will be thrilling to watch. You can catch the Tour of Flanders on Flobikes.com. But you might wanna make a big pot of coffee. The men’s race is on at (puts on reading glasses to make sure) 3:55 a.m. EDT and the women’s at 9:15 a.m. EDT. And as always, Canadian Cycling Magazine will have reports on both races.
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