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Expect surprises to emerge in misty Flanders

by John Wilcockson

• April 04, 2009
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Boonen still oddsmakers’ favorite

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By John Wilcockson

Boonen says this race is suited for him.

Photo: Graham Watson

Over the course of a nearly 100-year history, the Tour of Flanders has never been as popular as it is today. With a $2 million budget, crowds estimated at 700,000, and 840 volunteers patrolling the 261.5km route, the fabled cobblestone classic from Bruges to Meerbeke is Belgium’s largest annual sport event. The organizing newspaper, Het Nieuwsblad, devoted 24 pages to its Saturday race preview, and expects to fill another 24 pages on Sunday.

The hordes of Flemish fans will again be rooting for one of their own — especially the Quick Step team leaders Tom Boonen and Stijn Devolder who between them have won three of the past four editions. The one that slipped from their grasp came two years ago when current world champion Alessandro Ballan defeated another local, three-time runner-up Leif Hoste (Silence-Lotto).

Ballan is not taking the start on Sunday, having decided to focus his energy on next Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix; but another Italian, Filippo Pozzato (Katusha), could well continue the tradition of Italian winners that in the past 20 years includes Ballan (2007), Andrea Tafi (2002), Gianluca Bortolami (2001), Michele Bartoli (1996), Gianni Bugno (1994) and Moreno Argentin (1990).

Pozzato, 27, is on the form of his life. Last weekend, the blond Italian, who drives a Ferrari and has a playboy reputation, buckled down to out-sprint Boonen at the end of the “mini” Tour of Flanders, the E3 Grand Prix, with their only breakaway companion, Astana’s Maxim Iglinsky, in third. Then, on Tuesday, on the first stage of the Three Days of De Panne, Pozzato again rode away from the field, taking only one man with him: Belgian Frederik Willems (Liquigas) — who was a domestique for Pozzato when the Italian took his best Flanders finish of sixth last year.

While Boonen, Pozzato, Devolder and Hoste are the Belgian bookmakers’ firm favorites, there are a dozen others that could claim victory in this 93rd edition of De Ronde van Vlaanderen. The men most widely tipped to challenge the top riders include Germany’s Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo TestTeam), who shocked the peloton by almost winning Milan-San Remo two weeks ago; homegrown Nick Nuyens, who’s expected to be stronger than his Rabobank teammate Juan Antonio Flecha; and America’s perennial strong man George Hincapie (Columbia-Highroad).

Boonen is aiming for No. 3 on Sunday.

Photo: Agence France Presse – file photo

Hincapie, 35, is on the strongest period of spring form he has had, and by deliberately missing the De Panne race this past week, and devoting it to training in Spain, he may well have more reserves over the six-and-a-half-hour race than those who stayed in Belgium. Rabo’s Nuyens and Flecha make a dangerous duo, just like Quick Step’s Boonen and Devolder; and the big blond German, Haussler, at 25, has the backing of some great classics riders such as Roger Hammond, Thor Hushovd and Andreas Klier. But Haussler admits that he is afraid of Boonen on Sunday’s 16th and final climb, the Bosberg, 12km from the finish in Meerbeke.

The Bosberg is a straight climb on smooth cobbles, almost a kilometer long, with an 11-percent kicker near the top. It often decides the composition of the winning break; but in recent years, that role has gone to the race’s defining climb, the Mur de Grammont (as French speakers call it) or the Muur van Geraardsbergen (in the native Flemish). It, too, is a kilometer long, but much steeper than the Bosberg, with a near-10-percent average grade, and pitches twice that steep on the narrowest, bumpiest section of cobblestones. The Mur, 15km from the end, is rated the toughest of the Flemish bergs, along with the Old Kwaremont (hill No. 3), The Paterberg (No. 4) and the Koppenberg (N0. 5).

With dry, misty weather forecast, and temperatures likely to be in the upper-50s on Sunday afternoon, it’s likely that the race will be highly tactical. If so, a group of 20 or so could still be together when they reach the Mur — where the biggest crowds of the day are expected.

Many of them were already out on the course Saturday, with thousands riding the traditional pre-race cyclo-tourist event, while hundreds more watched them spin their way up the Mur. And scores of workers were setting up the beer stands, hot dog booths and party tents that will host thousands of fans on race day.

The Mur is only 360 feet above sea level, but from the bottom, where the peloton crosses the Dender River, there’s never an easy stretch. New cobbles have just been installed on a previously asphalt section through the town of Geraardsbergen (that was not ridden by the cyclotourists on Saturday), and then comes the most difficult part, with five sharp turns linking the Mur’s steepest pitches.

If there’s a major, major surprise Sunday, then it could come from Garmin-Slipstream’s Martijn Maaskant, the young Dutchman who placed fourth in his Paris-Roubaix debut last year. “Martijn is riding real strong,” team director Johnny Weltz told VeloNews. “He finished seventh overall at De Panne, and the team has good morale after Brad Wiggins won the time trial at De Panne.”

Also in Maaskant’s favor is the fact that, even though Flanders used to be won regularly by the Dutch, it has been 23 years since Adri Van der Poel was the last rider from across Belgium’s northern border to take De Ronde — when he upset 1986’s hot favorite Sean Kelly. But the odds are that this year’s top tip, Boonen, will send home those 700,000 fans celebrating his third victory in his country’s most popular event.

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