270 km, 17 mountains and 7 paved sectors! This is the big part that awaits the riders lined up at the start of the Tour of Flanders this Sunday March 31. For this 108th “Ronde van Vlaanderen”, the start of the route established by the organizers is quite flat but should in fact be completed fairly quickly.
The first part of the race will not be challenging in terms of elevation since the first difficulty will only occur after 135 km. This will be Old Kwaremont (2,600 m at 3.5%), which the runners will have to cross three times (136.7 km, 216.5 km and 254.1 km).
The difficulties and cobbled sectors (7 in total) will then follow one another, notably the Paterberg, the Koppenberg, the Taaienberg. The Paterberg (400 m at 12.9%) at kilometer 257.6 will also be the last climb of the route of this edition and should, if necessary, allow the leaders to make the very last differences, at around ten kilometers of the planned arrival in Oudenaarde.
The fictitious start of the race will be given at 10 a.m. in Antwerp for an initial ten marked kilometers, before the runners cross kilometer zero at 10:20 a.m. and really start the race. The first runners are expected to arrive around 4:30 p.m. Note that the title holder, Tadej Pogacar will not be present, just like Wout Van Aert, seriously injured after a fall on Wednesday during Across Flanders.
On the French side, Christophe Laporte also had to withdraw due to stomach flu. Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is the huge favorite. The Dutchman could win the second monument of his season and his third victory on the Tour of Flanders after 2020 and 2022. Among the women, the Belgian Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) will aim for a third consecutive victory.
