Tour of Flanders, Pogacar wins by crumbling Van Der Poel and Van Aert – Corriere.it

The Martian also conquered the Flanders. World cycling at the feet of Tadej Pogacar who won, indeed demolished the 107 Ronde van Vlaanderen crumbling on the last wall of a race of legendary hardness be the resistance of Mathieu Van Der Poel (2) than that of Wout Van Aert, fourth at the finish line behind Mads Pedersen. Ahead of the Slovenian, 23 years old, by quality and number of successes there is now only Eddy Merckx. Tadej the third in history after Louison Bobet and Merckx himself (50 years ago) to couple the victory in the Tour de France (he won two) in the Ronde and on Sunday he added the Flemish super classic to the Liège monuments and to the two Tours of Lombardy already in his palmares. Now in the sights of the Slovenian, for a five-pointer considered by many to be impossible in modern times, there is a Sanremo so far only touched upon and a Roubaix that is difficult but at this point not impossible.

Pogacar dominated all 6 hours and 11 minutes quickly. A good 55 kilometers from the finish, in the first passage on the deadly double wall Kwaremont / Paterberg, going into a breakaway with Van Der Poel, Van Aert and Pidkock, Pogacar landed a deadly draw. In the second he got away from a never tamed Van Der Poel and caught Pedersen who had been fleeing since the morning, passing him at double speed. The last ten kilometers were a solitary time trial with Van Der Poel chasing desperately at about twenty seconds and Van Aert closed in a small group of ten riders who lost the podium to Pedersen in the sprint. Very good Matteo Trentin, tenthwho led the day’s escape by giving a hand to the Slovenian captain before the attack on the last wall.

Very bad accident in the first part of the race due to a crazy maneuver by the Pole Maciejuk who he overtook the group on the edge of the team and returned cutting off everyone and knocking down a dozen riders: the rider was instantly disqualified.