The WIAs, Sporza’s WIeler Awards: who scored the hit of the spring, who ‘sang’ best duet? | cycling

We immediately set the tone with a first trophy that is not really to be envied in this case. Filip Maciejuk incurred the wrath of the entire peloton by losing control of his bike in the Tour of Flanders after a rash overtaking maneuver and knocking over a pack of colleagues like a bowling ball.

No 3 strikes and out for the Pool, but 1 strike and pack immediately. Maciejuk was put off the course and apologized profusely afterwards.

The score that Lotte Kopecky wrote this spring was one with few false notes, a succession of first and second places.

Perhaps Kopecky’s most remarkable victory was in Nokere Koerse. Only a few days after the tragic death of her brother, she put all her emotions into an impressive solo in a dead sprinter’s race.

Tom Pidcock’s spring was not quite what he had hoped for after a concussion in Tirreno-Adriatico, but the opening agreement was there. In the Strade Bianche, the Briton already started his raid towards glory at 50 kilometers from Siena.

Not a ‘duet with false notes’, but a perfect canon: Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte drove in perfect harmony with the two of them towards Wevelgem. In the end, Van Aert was magnanimous enough to give Laporte the round of applause.

This one is a bit out of place, but producer Leo van Vliet sometimes wants to go very far when organizing ‘the friends of Amstel’. The Dutchman was so happy that he could attract Tadej Pogacar as headliner for his festival, that he really did everything to make it a success. Even though it wasn’t on Pogacar’s rider, he was offered some extra help unsolicited.

An unforgettable picture, perhaps the best picture of the spring: the three tenors of Milan-Sanremo who were crammed into a chair that was much too small after the race.

For a long time it seemed that the Jumbo-Visma men’s team would take this trophy, but in the end they play second fiddle compared to the women of Team SD Worx.

With Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold Race, Walloon Arrow, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Ronde van Drenthe and Gent-Wevelgem, the Dutch band caught no less than 8 fat fish on dry land.

Alison Jackson had been the uncrowned queen of TikTok and Instagram for a while with her dances, but with her unexpected victory in Paris-Roubaix she suddenly went around the world. And of course that had to be celebrated with a TikTok dance.

During the Tour of Flanders, the riders of Team DSM had a little too much to say with their tactics to ride extremely slow, including on the Kortekeer, and then to throw all the ropes loose at the top.

A tactic that was only moderately appreciated by the cycling followers, after which they suddenly sang a little lower at DSM.

There is a horse in the hallway? Not in Siena. There the animal escaped and hopped along with Demi Vollering on the Tuscan gravel roads.

EF-EasyPost rode a remarkable spring for both men and women. In the Brabantse Pijl a new name suddenly popped up with Ben Healy. A few days later, the Irishman was second again, this time in the Amstel. In Liège he finished fourth. The fact that he also resembles Urbanus was taken for granted by the Flemish cycling followers.

Perhaps not the most beautiful design visually, but with an important underlying message: Jumbo-Visma rode Paris-Roubaix for both men and women with a ‘brain helmet’ as an awareness campaign for wearing a bicycle helmet.

Mathieu van der Poel made a more than creditable attempt to snatch this trophy from Tadej Pogacar’s nose, but the list of victories that the latter manages to present in 2023 sounds like music to the ears: Ronde van Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold Race, Paris-Nice and on top of that even smaller tunes like the Ruta del Sol and the Jaen Paraiso Interior. It’s a shame that the plug in Liège was pulled prematurely.

He had hoped to be able to hit a timpani in his last spring, but it ended with a silent drum. Nevertheless, we should not forget what Peter Sagan has shown in the classics in recent years.

A selection from his honors list: wins in the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, E3 Harelbeke, 3x Gent-Wevelgem and the Brabantse Pijl. For years, the Slovak has entertained cycling fans on and off the bike. A deserved winner for the Lifetime Achievement Award.

He knows his classics. All the colors of the rainbow: Remco Evenepoel performed a successful bis number in his rainbow jersey in Liège-Bastogne-Liège as the bouncer of the spring.