UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar won an epic see-saw showdown at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, soloing home from 15km ahead of Mathieu van der Poel, who eventually had to settle for third after being pipped at the line by Mads Pedersen.
The duel between Pogacar and defending champion Van der Poel played out across the 17 hills in bright sunshine before the Slovenian broke away.
World champion Pogacar, who won both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in 2024, collected his eighth one-day Monument, moving ahead of one-day specialist Van der Poel on seven.
"The goal was to win but at the end it's hard to realise. I cannot be more proud of the team," said a beaming Pogacar at the end of the 270km slog before 750,000 boisterous roadside fans in northern Belgium.
“The plan was to go from the Oude Kwaremont and we followed the plan, even though we had some crashes in the team. We made it, we stuck to the plan and we finished it off.
“Florian [Vermeersch] somehow chased back the whole race [after his crash] and made it just in time to lead out on the Kwaremont, so chapeau to him. We were unlucky to lose Tim [Wellens] and Jhony [Navarez] with crashes but we never gave up, all of the riders kept coming back. Mikkel [Bjerg], Antonio [Morgado] – everybody – all of my teammates went over themselves to do the plan and even with setbacks they did it perfectly.”
The event is not only a key event on the one day-calendar but a shared national experience in Belgium.
"Tadej pulled off a great show for cycling," said UAE manager Mauro Gianetti.
For once, the race embarked under bright blue skies heading into the lush green Flanders fields with windmills and happy weekend crowds gathered.
Of the main contenders, Filippo Ganna, second at the Milan-San Remo in March, broke at 100km with fellow Italian Matteo Trentin.
They were caught and overtaken by Pogacar and Van der Poel with 60km to go and the pair then began an infernal struggle to drop one another.
Wout van Aert caught the pair and briefly dropped them both. When Pogacar then retaliated, Van der Poel had nothing left in the tank.
Riding on his own into a head wind, Pogacar pulled a minute ahead of his rivals with four top riders unable to reel him in collectively.
"He's in a league of his own," said runner-up Pedersen. "Quite frankly, I thought we'd be able to get him back."
The one-day circus now moves on to the Paris-Roubaix mudfest next Sunday where a similar set of contenders will scrap it out on the cobbled mining roads of the border region with Belgium and France.
It will be Pogacar's first appearance in the race.
"Roubaix is a completely different race but I will accept the challenge and try to do my best. Flanders suits me better but with the shape I'm in now I should give it a try," said Pogacar.
