Flanders Wrap: Van der Poel, Koppenberg Steal the Show

American presence continues to grow

Post-Flanders sleep is the best. For us... I have some experiences on both sides. At home, it comes after a day where I’ve been up since 4, and probably gone for a ride. On the two occasions I’ve been in Belgium, it’s the day we don’t need to do anything. The Sportive is the day before Flanders, and Sunday is busy from the jump. Monday, you leave that one open. Even for the riders it’s largely a day to spin out the legs, so there is no hurry to get going (unless, like yesterday’s winner, Alpecin’s Mathieu van der Poel, you’ve decided to train all week in Spain). And you know they all slept like rocks.

Paris-Roubaix is different for them, almost everyone is off to Zaventem in the morning, if they haven’t already jetted off at night after the race. Paris-Roubaix is always different.

Over Early

Yesterday’s race was the most lopsided affair since... when? Boonen in 2012 maybe? No, he won a three-up sprint before his legendary Paris-Roubaix solo. For a massive gap, you’d have to go all the way back to Eddy Merckx in 1969, who won by more than five minutes. Mathieu van der Poel won yesterday by just over a minute, after shedding about half of his lead in the finale where he was out of gas, and his margin was slightly less than what Fabian Cancellara won by in both 2010 and 2013.

Van der Poel’s win is high in audacity too, going from 43-ish km out. That mark is topped by Philippe Gilbert’s 2017 win where he launched from 55km, in the second running of the Oude Kwaremont — the same place where van der Poel toyed with launching but thought better of it, for a few minutes. Similarly, Stijn Devolder won from distance in 2008, first from 40k with a few friends and then 25k alone. In Gilbert’s and Devolder’s cases, though, the audacity of their attacks was tempered by the fact that they were both viewed as secondary options for their team, and both won by rather small margins.

Some (bettors) would say the race was over before it started. I can’t round up odds after the fact, but have heard that nobody was more than a two star favorite (per the Cycling Podcast) while van der Poel was at five stars. Was anyone more favored than +1000, besides the winner? Pedersen maybe at 8/1?

[N.b., I refer to gambling sometimes not because I do it, or recommend it at all — I don’t. I do like knowing where people are putting their hard-earned money, though. Gambling odds lie at the intersection of thoughtful analysis and popular opinion, usually.]

One Last Ode to the Koppenberg

If de Ronde wasn’t very interesting to watch, or at least analyze (it’s always interesting to watch), it was at least interesting to imagine an alternate scenario where that stupid, awful Dwars crash didn’t happen, for the simple reason that this was our best Koppenberg year in a while. The foul weather made for a very hard race, thanks to windy conditions early on, so everyone’s tank was running low. In that sense, the scenario where the race stays together late was probably never in play. Then you add in the slippery conditions on the notorious cobbles, and you have a recipe for mayhem.

Van der Poel credited his (still marginal) ability to ascend the Kopp successfully by having ridden Koppenbergcross years ago, which these days involves maybe 6 or 7 laps where they charge up the steepest 22% section in rotten conditions. Only VLAB’s Matteo Jorgenson could kind of follow; everyone else had to put a foot down, a 20-second penalty at a minimum.

Wout Van Aert is a three-time winner at Koppenbergcross, for probably several reasons but certainly an ode to his ability to handle the stones at their slickest. [I would have liked Tom Pidcock’s chances on it too.] That’s the finale we deserved. Ah well.

American Cycling Arrives at the Classics

It was an interesting day for the American presence in the classics on a number of fronts.

As noted above, Jorgenson was the last man standing yesterday after the Koppenberg, but a mechanical on the Oude Kwaremont, followed by a flat tire and general exhaustion, saw him sink to 31st on the day. Two of his compatriots, Magnus Sheffield of INEOS and Riley Sheehan of Israel-Premier Tech, finished in the top 15, a result roughly on par with the top tens by Jorgenson and EF’s Neilson Powless, who last year matched Tyler Farrar’s best recent/post-EPO American finish of fifth place, but who couldn’t take the start this time due to injuries.

It’s hard to say which result is more remarkable. Obviously Powless was very good last year and is at the peak of his powers at age 27. Flanders is, after all, an old man’s game. Jorgenson, at 24, is already a B-list contender and should remain so going forward if that’s what Visma-Lease-a-Bike has in mind for him. Sheffield has ridden the race three times, improved each time, and is a mere 21. Sheehan is 23 but arrived at the line yesterday in 13th despite it being his second-ever start in a Monumental classic (e.g. loooong distance) after finishing Milano-Sanremo in the autobus.

All promising stuff. Meanwhile, three days after a breakthrough win in Dwars door Vlaanderen by Jorgenson, on the eve of the Ronde van Vlaanderen, another American, UAE’s Brandon McNulty, has taken the prize at the GP Miguel Indurain, the climbers’ classic in Estella, in the heart of Basque Country. It’s his third win on the season, and like Jorgenson these results no longer feel flukey. Something is really happening.

If you want the full list of American breakthroughs at the Classics, CN had a post about them a couple days ago. But the fuller story is that Americans had a few moments in the bad old days of Armstrong and US Postal, which we mistook for the good old days, where not only were they chasing yellow jerseys but George Hincapie seemed forever on the verge of a Monumental win. Farrar, the sprinter and official Friend of the Cafe, spent some time sniffing around for a bigger win than his Scheldeprijs victory in 2010, his most notable one-day palmare. Ultimately neither of them made it any further at either Flanders or Roubaix than Hincapie’s second place in the latter, which is now scrubbed for posterity.

Of course, American teams have won all five monuments: Trek at MSR (Stuyven) and Lombardia (Mollema) and EF/Garmin everywhere but MSR (Dan Martin, Bettiol, Van Summeren). But let’s face it, those are just registration forms and sponsorship parties. Only EF is notably “American” to the extent team culture comes from a single country anymore. And their breakthroughs were all about their talented Europeans.

Of course, we are seven years out from the greatest American result in de Ronde or any cobbled classic.

Yes, that’s Coryn Rivera, now Coryn Labecki, WINNING THE RONDE VAN VLAANDEREN!!! In a sprint over the likes of Annemiek van Vleuten and Lotte Kopecky. I still can’t really believe it happened, and only slightly regret a collective effort on the part of our Flanders House to ambush Pigeons in the middle of her Women’s Cycling Podcast and sing the national anthem. Labecki probably won’t top that day, though at 31 she has some good years left in her legs I am sure. [She was a DNF yesterday and has had a rough season so far.] Anyway, the Cycling world’s sleeping giant isn’t totally slumbering, and may even be stirring a bit. Fingers crossed.