[UCI World Tour] Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres

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Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres

After my Tour de France event I decided to do small events for the cycling spring and autumn classics as well.

How it works

Predict who is going to win the race; that's all. :)

Entries close when the race starts. Since it's a one day race just enter your predictions here.

Once all the classics have finished I will create a special winner's train (well, table :) event for everyone who correctly predicted a winner.

Race Preview

This is it! The first really big one of the season and the one that all of Belgium has been looking forward to. This year will be the 101th edition and we might have some rain to spice it up even more. Can't wait for those cobbly hills.

The race has changed (as is usual every few years, it seems); we start in Antwerp now and the Muur van Geraardsbergen is back, but not close to the finish so we're unlikely to see the race winning breakaway there.

If we look at the top three finishers in the classics these last few weeks we see two things; lots of Belgians and Van Avermaet and Sagan featuring the most.

	1	2	3
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad	Van Avermaet	Sagan	Vanmarcke
Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne	Sagan	Stuyven	Rowe
Strade Bianche	Kwiatkowski	Van Avermaet	Wellens
Milaan-Sanremo	Kwiatkowski	Sagan	Alaphilippe
Dwars door Vlaanderen	Lampaert	Gilbert	Loetsenko
E3 Harelbeke	Van Avermaet	Gilbert	Naesen
Gent-Wevelgem	Van Avermaet	Keukeleire	Sagan

Sites
Official Site
Wikipedia

Favorites

Greg Van Avermaet has been on fire the last few weeks and is seen by most as the top favorite. This year's race goes right by his house and since he does all his training here, he'll know his way around even better than most.
Last year's winner, Peter Sagan is in some hot water right now as he shouldered a rider in Gent-Wevelgem last week which led to some backlash. Can he set all this aside and beat Van Avermaet for a second win?
Philippe Gilbert has had a great week (winning Three Days of De Panne) though I still see him more as an Ardennes rider.
Then there's Tom Boonen; it's his last season and thus this is his final chance to become the first ever rider to win this classic four times. I don't think he is up for it anymore but then, what do I know?
Quick-Step Floors has brought out all the guns as they also entered Niki Terpstra, Zdeněk Štybar, Matteo Trentin, and more I could mention.
Alexander Kristoff won a stage in the Three Days of De Panne this week and he will be supported by Tony Martin.
John Degenkolb has not been able to do it this season but winning here would make everything right for his team in one fell swoop.
Someone who has been doing suprisingly well is Luke Durbrigde, he can certainly be considered a dark horse.
Tiesj Benoot is seen as a potential winner but he has never won a race yet.
Ian Stannard and Luke Rowe are flying the flag for Team Sky but haven't been having the best time so far. Maybe they need a medicine delivery from the UK? ;)
There's certainly more Belgians who will have a shot at the race on Sunday: Jens Keukeleire, Oliver Naesen, Edward Theuns, Jasper Stuyven, the list goes on.
I'll mention Sep Vanmarcke (third last year) but he's been having a pretty terrible time and won't win this one.
Sadly few Dutch riders seem to have a real shot tomorrow, Lars Boom and Niki Terpstra are our best bets; I say let's hope for terrible weather.