Old Kwaremont, deciphering a feared and decisive passage on the Tour of Flanders

We should not trust the images from last year, where the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar gave the impression of flattening the mountain, to set the record for the climb, the 2,200 m in just under 4 minutes. Old Kwaremont remains a place of suffering, due to its length, already unusual in the Flandrian mountains, and its difficulty which increases over the three passages. “The second is a management transition, to stay in contact,” analyzes Valentin Madouas, 3rd in 2022 behind Mathieu Van der Poel and Dylan Van Baarle. It doesn’t hurt very much yet. But in the third, you arrive completely dead, you have just completed five or six cobbled hills. Muscularly, you have taken all the vibrations, you are at the end of your physical efforts, they are everywhere and you have to get back into it. You are really in the unknown, you can pass the first ramp but
explode in the next one. » Here are the three main phases that must be “survived”.