He was the favorite on the eve and Fabian Cancellara lived up to expectations by winning his third Ronde in a big way, a success that places him on the highest pedestal of the winners of the Tour of Flanders together with Fiorenzo Magni and Tom Boonen. A victory that is a commercial for cycling that is hungry for feats and champions who interpret them at the right moment, when people are waiting for them to get excited. Like the extraordinary Contador on the Guardiagrele wall at the recent Tirreno-Adriatico, like Spartacus today in the Ronde which opened the Holy Week of the Northern Classics which will culminate in Sunday's Roubaix.
Hard and grueling race, with avalanche falls - tragic that of Van Summeren, surprise winner of a Roubaix, who ran over a woman, hospitalized in very serious conditions -, the Ronde, wall after wall, made a tremendous selection under the direction of a Cancellara, who was too often scalded in the final race – see the last two Sanremos – sipped his strength, as long as he could, before unleashing himself on the Quaremont, outdistancing Boonen and giving the definitive kappao blow to the disappointing Sagan – never in the race Slovakian who was also the favorite n.2.
Only three Belgians resisted the forcing of the "locomotive of Bern", three "Vans" of the tough Flemings who until the end tried to mock the Swiss champion: Van Avermaet, Vanderbergh and Vanmarcke. On the last wall, the Paterberg, it was Van Avermaet who attacked, followed for a while by Vanderbergh, the last Omega Pharma left in the running after the collapse of Boonen and Terpstra. Cancellara even at the top of the wall was preceded by Vanmarcke, the ambitious young Flemish second behind Spartacus in last year's Roubaix. But they were attempts that didn't scare the master of the race who was already studying how to beat them all in the sprint. The important thing was to beware of the return of Kristoff who was chasing and who had burned him on the Lungomare Calvino in the last Sanremo. Cancellara doesn't even get upset when, three kilometers from the finish, on the very long Oudenaarde straight, Vanderbergh surprisingly tries a desperate push. The Swiss leaves the task of closing the hole to Van Avermaet. In the end it flew to four with even a hint of a substitute as was done on the track in the golden days of Maspes.Vince of power Cancellara who thus enters the history of the Ronde. First of the three defeated "Vans" is Van Avermaet, third Vanmarcke, then Vanderbergh, a fourth place which does not alleviate the bitter disappointment of the Omega Pharma Quick Step which bet on Boonen's poker.
