Epic challenge at the Tour of Flanders: Van der Poel, Ganna and Pogacar ready to amaze

The giants of Sanremo are back to challenge each other, Van der Poel, Ganna e pogacar, in strict podium order. Even if, compared to the Classicissima, the tour of the Flanders It's a completely different race: walls, cobblestones and narrow streets make it harder, the million-odd Belgians who embrace the route in the Flemish countryside make it the most fascinating of monumental tests. It's the second act of a show that will have a sequel next Sunday, on another luxurious stage: the stones of the Roubaix.

Beautiful, but not for everyone: to win the Ronde, you need strength and technique, tactical cunning and good luck. The number one suspect remains Mathieu van der Poel: having won it three times in six participations, with two second places and a fourth in the others, explains how confident the Flying Dutchman is with this classic. To write another page of history, because no one has ever entered the roll of honor four times, he has only one obstacle: to be afraid of pogacar he said it in Flanders even before winning Sanremo.

pogacar he is the one who two years ago won the Flanders by detaching Vdp far from the finish line, on the Old Kwaremont: the plan is still the same. "I'm not looking for revenge, I just want to win", says the Slovenian, accustomed to solving the issues by leaving his rivals behind. This time he has the right terrain to do it: the 269 kilometers between Bruges and Oudenaarde offer sixteen walls, almost all stone and steep, plus another seven sections of cobblestones. It will still be a duel between phenomena, the most successful in the classics: the former Dutch world champion has won seven so far, the same number by the current one.

Between the two litigants, he tries to insert himself again Goofy Ganna, although ahead of his personal calendar: his real appointment remains the Roubaix. In the meantime, the hour record holder is right to test himself on a terrain that does not smile on him: it helps him to keep a splendid form warm and smell the special climate of the great events in the North. In any case, it remains the best card that the poor Italian cycling team has to play in a century-old classic won only eleven times, the last in 2019 with Bettiol. In the Ganna group, the Danish Pedersen, very fast on the cobbles, and the always highly anticipated Van Aert, also act as outsiders, even if he seems far from the role of anti-Vdp earned in the cross: for them too, beating the two monsters would make the feat memorable.

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