On the road at the E3 Saxo Bank Classic and then in newsprint ever since, Tadej Pogačar has spent the week leading up to the Tour of Flanders in the company of Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. If he is to beat them to the Ronde on Sunday, however, the Slovenian knows that he will finally have to lose them somewhere on the road to Oudenaarde.
There is precious little to separate the Big Three as the big day arrives, but in the event of a deadlock, both Van der Poel and Van Aert would probably back themselves in a sprint. Although Pogačar packs a decent turn of speed himself, especially in an endurance race like this – witness his efforts at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 – his likeliest road to victory here is a solitary one.
