Quickly Summing Up the Action at the 2014 Tour of Flanders
Pais Vasco kicked off today in Ordizia (check out the VeloHuman preview!), which means that De Ronde 2014 is now history. Sunday’s battle on the cobbles of East Flanders made for an incredibly exciting contest, with action enough for several races throughout the long day on the road. At times, it looked like anyone’s game, with constant crashes and daring attacks providing plenty of uncertainty to keep things interesting. Riders were dropping like flies with each climb. As the front of the pack approached the last few hillingen with two-time winner Fabian Cancellara among them, an air of inevitability started to creep in. The other contenders sensed it and did what they could, with Greg Van Avermaet and Stijn Vandenbergh going off the nose a bit over 30 km out. When Spartacus jumped from the chasers on the brutal Oude Kwaremont on his way to track them down, only Sep Vanmarcke could follow up the bone-rattling cobbles; fellow pre-race favorites Peter Sagan and Tom Boonen were unable to hang on.
From there, it was a matter of Cancellara and Vanmarcke catching the men in front, which they did, and the foursome hanging on ahead of the pack. Their bid was successful, leading to a four man sprint for the 94th Tour of Flanders. A game of cat and mouse ensued, with each rider jockeying for the best position and trying to plan the perfect time to turn on the ignition, but even with 3-to-1 odds, the Belgian trio could not match Cancellara in the final gallop. Spartacus delivered again Sunday to pick up his 3rd win in the Monument Classic, with Greg Van Avermaet 2nd and Sep Vanmarcke a disappointed 3rd.
Lessons Learned Along the Road to Oudenaarde
Fabian Cancellara‘s 3rd Ronde van Vlaanderen victory is his seventh Monument. That ties him with Tom Boonen, and it does not look like Spartacus is slowing yet. He has shined on the two biggest stages of the year, outclassing some of the best sprinters in the world on his way to a 2nd place in Milano-Sanremo and then using his sprint again even more effectively to take De Ronde. Though the Trek rider just turned 33 this March, both his finishing kick and his powerful engine seem to be as strong as ever. He has said that he may retire within the next few years, but given his current form, he’s likely to fill those years with more success, especially in the most beloved one-day races on the calendar, which also happen to be the most grueling—and therefore suit him perfectly. This Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix will be the perfect place for the strongest of strongmen to take yet another major victory. He enters as the big favorite after this dominant show.
Perhaps the second biggest story of the Ronde van Vlaanderen was Peter Sagan‘s inability to match Cancellara on the Oude Kwaremont. Despite showing strong form in several big races so far this season, Sagan had no answer for Spartacus on the brutal final hillingen. It would be hard and probably incorrect to pinpoint any one reason why his ability to nab races like Gent-Wevelgem and E3 Harelbeke has not translated into a Monument yet. A few factors come to mind. First, he does seem sapped of power when the odometer gets over 240 kilometers, as it does in these races. His Milano-Sanremo 2014 sprint was far less impressive than it usually is, and his uphill burst seemed drastically reduced when Cancellara turned on the afterburners in this weekend’s Tour of Flanders. Sagan’s team support, or lack thereof, may be another major factor—Sagan does not have Cancellara’s ability to carry on over tens of kilometers alone, and while it can’t be said that Cannondale does not surround the young Slovakian with talent, he is too often left without assistance at key moments in a race. Whatever has held him back, I don’t think it necessarily counts him out for this Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix, even if it seems to suit him less than other races. The truth of the matter is that any rider can have an off-day when he least wants to, and it’s always possible that Sagan just hasn’t gotten his best days to line up with the biggest races yet.
Sep Vanmarcke impressed me more than most other riders in the race with his ability to jump up the Oude Kwaremont behind Cancellara. It is a serious climb, meaning that even if he has yet to win a big race this season, Vanmarcke is on serious form. In my mind, Vanmarcke is right with four-time winner Tom Boonen as top challengers to Cancellara in Paris-Roubaix. Without the uphill mileage of the Ronde, the Hell of the North may be a better shot for Vanmarcke. He’s perfected the art of holding Cancellara’s wheel, and, learning from the best, one day soon he might just time his own attack perfectly.
What more can I say about Greg Van Avermaet that hasn’t already been said? It’s hard not to root for the 28-year old, a constant fixture in the spring classics. The BMC rider has shown in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and on Sunday in Flanders that he is in great shape in 2014, and with such a high probability of a good placing in almost every race he takes on, it seems likely that one of these days, he might win the final sprint to the line or solo away and stay out until the finish line. Better tactics (not wasting energy trying to drop Stijn Vandenbergh) will help as well.
Tom Boonen was unable to hang with the lead group on Sunday, but he did manage to end up a respectable 7th. His thumb seems to still be affecting him; I’d say he ran a decent race given his injury, and hopefully, he will continue to heal and challenge for Paris-Roubaix. OPQS as a whole will (and should) be very disappointed with the way things turned out. Their best placed rider Stijn Vandenbergh did not come close in the sprint. Niki Terpstra tried to pick up Boonen’s slack with an attempt to bridge to the final foursome, but was unsuccessful. Zdenek Stybar was among the big group of chasers but did not manage to make waves. They will look to bounce back in Paris-Roubaix. With last year’s 3rd place finisher (Terpstra) and 6th place finisher (Stybar, who might have been on the podium himself if not for a spectator crash) lining up alongside Tom Boonen (another week removed from his thumb injury) in a race he has dominated, they are set up nicely.
Milano-Sanremo winner Alexander Kristoff forced himself further into the Paris-Roubaix conversation with a 5th place in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. It would have been something if the Katusha hardman had won the bunch sprint behind the leading group as he did last year, but his 2014 performance, while landing him a 5th instead of 4th, was arguably more impressive, as it involved him jumping into an attempt to bridge with only one other rider (Niki Terpstra) and then going it alone for the closing minutes of the race. The fact that he was able to be up there when Sagan and John Degenkolb had fallen away speaks volumes about Kristoff’s talent. His abilities shine brightest on the toughest days. Paris-Roubaix is one such day, and Kristoff will look to improve on his 2013 result, 9th place, in this edition. Without climbs but with all the brutality of a cobbled Monument Classics, P-R could be a great stage for Kristoff.
Cancellara’s dominance, the rise of Kristoff and Vanmarcke, and the continued disappointment for Sagan may be the biggest takeaways from the 2014 Ronde, but in my mind they come with a major caveat. On the harsh cobbles of the spring classics, races can change in an instant (Cancellara knows this better than anyone thanks to his 2012 crash). Any rider can have a great day or a terrible day, and the conditions of the Monuments tend to push this fact to its extremes. In short, Fabian Cancellara was the most dominant rider on Sunday and he’ll enter Paris-Roubaix the favorite, but when the gears start turning and the adrenaline gets pumping, it only takes one perfectly-timed move by one in-form challenger to shake things up. As usual, VeloHuman will be previewing the excitement to come, and tweeting more thoughts @VeloHuman on Twitter (be sure to follow!).
-Dane Cash
Photo by Mark Blacknell. Video courtesy of CyclingHub.
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