[UCI World Tour] Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres 2018

Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres

How it works

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

Entries close when the race starts (Sunday morning).

Race Preview

This is it! Vlaanderens Mooiste (Dutch for "Flanders' Finest") is finally here. Around 800,000 of Belgium’s 5,000,000 population will be roadside. It's a race that's a guarantee for spectacle and one that almost never disappoints. Last year we had an unexpected solo victory, rain has been predicted for Sunday; what will be in store for us this year?

This is also the start of four Sundays of superb cycling, after this we get Paris-Roubaix (my all time favorite), the Amstel Gold Race, and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Hopefully it'll be a great month!

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Favorites

• Yup, normal service has been resumed; Peter Sagan won Gent-Wevelgem to show us all he's still got it. He's won here once and a rider of his class will definitely want to get multiple wins here (no rider has ever won this race more than three times).
• His major opponent these last few years, Greg Van Avermaet, hasn't been having a great season so far (certainly not compared to his once in a lifetime start of the 2017 season) but as a Flamand (someone from Flanders) he will be incredibly motivated to add this monument to his palmarès.
• Another Flamand who has been classified as a potential classics winner all his career is Sep Vanmarcke. Unfortunately he never won a single thing in his years with the Dutch Lotto-Jumbo team. On tv this week, the Sporza journalists all saw him as Belgium's biggest hope behind Saga for this race. I'll believe it when I see it.
• The Quick-Step wolfpack has arrived! Philippe Gilbert (winner here last year), Niki Terpstra (winner of E3-Harelbeke last week), Yves Lampaert (winner of Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday), Zdenek Štybar (who hasn't won much recently but can definitely win here, even more so at Roubaix, and I'd even say he deserves a win) are all potential winners of this race. The team has been dominating the season so far with 20 wins (by 10 different riders). Everyone will be looking at them on Sunday and with such a breadth of talent they are best positioned when it comes to team tactics.
• Michał Kwiatkowski is the man to do it for Team Sky.
• There's of course loads of Belgian hopefuls at the start of this race: Tiesj Benoot (winner of Strade Bianche this year), Oliver Naesen, Wout Van Aert (definitely one to watch for the future), etc.
• Winner of Milano-Sanremo this year, Vincenzo Nibali, will race, surprisingly. He could definitely win here but I really hope he won't.
• Alejandro Valverde unfortunately won't be starting here this year. On Wednesday he did Dwars door Vlaanderen as a practice for this year's Tour de France stage that will have cobbled sectors. Before the race he said this: "I never could have thought that I would be riding at the same level as last year, or even better. On a physical level I don’t feel the consequences of the crash anymore, I do mentally a bit, and if the road is a little wet because of the rain, then I'm a bit more cautious." It rained, and he finished 11th... I am really hoping he will give de Ronde van Vlaanderen a try next year!

Giveaway

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