It will be a Tour of Flanders longer than 5 km and also harder for the insertion of two new walls, but without Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, the two great specialists who have won six of the last ten editions of the Tour of Flanders, three each, the one that takes place this Easter will be a more open race even if the Kwaremont and the Paterberg, just 14 km from the finish in Oudenaarde, will still be the probable springboard for whoever succeeds Cancellara in the roll of honor of the first classic-monument of the North.
Without the two big names – the Belgian is preparing for the next Roubaix while the Swiss is out after the bad fall at Harelbeke – there is a range of riders on which the underdogs on the eve are concentrated. In the front row with a 4,5 rating in the bookmakers' bets is the British from Sky, Geraint Thomas, brilliant winner of the last Harelbeke. The Belgian follows him at 7,5 Sep Vanmarcke; at 8 it is given alexander kristoff, the Norwegian who, after coming close to an encore at Sanremo, won the Three Days of De Panne in a big way; at 9 there is Sdenek Stybar, the first Czech this year in the Strade Bianche in Siena; 10 is given a trio of qualities consisting of Greg Van Avermaet, Peter Sagan and Niki Terpstra, all three this season still looking for a hit. John Degenkolb, the German winner in Sanremo, is listed at 12.
Among the Italians the best popular at 33 is Luca Paolini, after the amazing solo, at the age of 38, in Ghent-Wevelgem. Among the winners of the Ronde there is only one at the start Stijn Devolder, who starts on Sunday with number 1, as leader of Trek, orphaned by Cancellara: to his credit there is even a double triumph in the Ronde of 2008 and 2009. A third victory would bring the 35-year-old Belgian into the elite recordmen of the classic “walls” like Achiel Buysse (1940-41-43), Fiorenzo Magni (1949-50-51), Eric Leman (1970-72-73), Johann Museeuw (1993-95-98), Tom Boonen (2005 -06-12) and Fabian Cancellara (2010-11-14).
As can be seen in the entry list, many good riders but no champions capable of being super-favourites: in this scenario, even a great who is now close to retiring could have his say – as long as he does not give up at the last moment as often happens to him. that Bradley Wiggins who won his last time trial at the Three Days of De Panne and who put Roubaix at the top of his goals before abandoning road racing to devote himself to preparing for the hour record.
A success in Flanders by Wiggo would be a good ad for the cycling world which has approached this season with the enthusiasm of those who anticipate epic clashes at the top, maximum in the Tour with Nibali, Contador, Froome and Quintana, all four finally at the starting line, but one month before the start of the Giro d'Italia is still grappling with the Astana dossier after the repeated cases of doping involving the Kazakh team.
It is no coincidence that in the Saxo-Tinkoff house, the Russian patron Oleg Tinkov hastened to end the relationship with Bjarne Rijs, team manager of Contador's team for years, a character of undoubted experience, but now too cumbersome and compromised with the doping, a scourge that risks triggering the exclusion from racing for Astana with the withdrawal of the World Tour license. The decision will be made in Lausanne on 23 April. A dispute that is upsetting the season of Nibali, captain of the Kazakh team, always testimonial of a clean cycling, which ended however incautiously - also due to the lure of a princely contract - in a company too tied to a past of vials and epo from which it seems to be hard to break away.
Nibali has personally committed to defending the new course taken by his team, assuming a much more credible role of defense lawyer than Vinokourov himself, team manager with a past as a rider not without blemishes. But the risk that Nibali doesn't race the Tour still exists today. And it's creepy. Fabio Aru is also in the same situation as Nibali and should be Astana's leading man in the Giro to counter the overwhelming power of Contador, the great favorite of the Italian stage race. A bad mess, that of Astana, which darkens a season that was only supposed to be so bright.
