Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan were the great favorites of the Tour of Flanders and the hundredth edition of the Ronde did not disappoint expectations by staging the best show offered by cycling in this part of the season: a last breath challenge with Cancellara going to the attack on the two final walls and with Sagan who defiantly held the wheel in a head-to-head of other times. On the Old Quaremont the Swiss tried the lunge several times but the Slovak didn't give a meter.
Sagan has a faster shot than Cancellara. All that remained for Fabian was Paterberg to play his last cards. And Cancellara played it big: a hundred meters from the top, just when the slope reaches peaks of 20%, the Swiss was stratospheric by scoring an extension that left Sagan breathless. The Slovak gave in with a bang when he was already looking forward to putting his first seal on a classic-monument, after last Sunday's success in Ghent-Wevelgem. For Cancellara it was the triumph, the second in the Ronde after that of 2010. Sagan lost 1' and 27” in just a few kilometers, as if paralyzed by his rival's show of power. However, he kept the place of honor ahead of the Belgian Jürgen Roelandts by two seconds and by 12” a group led by the Norwegian Alexander Kristoff and also including Greg Van Avermaet, Boasson Hagen, Sylvain Chavanel and our Oss and Gatto. Tom Boonen missed the appeal at the finish line after he crashed and was forced to retire.
Nothing serious in view of Paris-Roubaix next Sunday, where however – Sagan absent – he, Cancellara, will still be the favorite more than ever, who has a great desire to make up for it after the bad luck that persecuted him last year forcing him to give up forfeit to all the classics. Monument of the North for breaking the collarbone right on a wall of the Ronde 2012.
