Two of the biggest stars of current world cycling, such as the two-time Tour de France champion (2020 and 2021) Tadej Pogacar of the UAE Team Emirates and the Dutch Mathieu van der Poel of the Alpecin Fenix, renowned for his skills in different modalities such as cross-country and cyclocross, will face each other at the 2022 Tour de Flanders.
There the two riders will arrive as the top favorites, although it should not be ruled out that other cyclists arrive who could surprise this Sunday, April 3.
Some other names that sound like potential winners are Kasper Asgreen from Quick Step-Alpha Vinil, Danny van Popel from Bora Hansgrohe and Michael Matthews from Australia's Bike Exchange.
The course for this 106th edition will have up to 18 hard climbs, plus 7 cobblestone areas that will be key for most runners who aspire to the title. The route will be 272.5 km and it is expected that there will be snow around the road by the time of the competition.
For fans, the competition will not be the same without the presence of one of the most beloved cyclists internationally and considered one of the most complete in the peloton currently, as is the Belgian Wout Van Aert of Jumbo Visma, given that apparently he would have tested positive for Coronavirus.
Given this, the cyclist himself confirmed that he will not be able to be part of the starting line of the race for this reason, but that his state of health is stable, despite the few symptoms he has recently presented.
Given this, the Dutch team decided to send a group of runners with whom they will have several chips to play in order to get at least the podium. One of them will be the local Tiesj Benoot and Christophe Laporte, who come from making important presentations in previous competitions, especially Benoot who came second in the pass through Flanders, only being surpassed by Van der Poel.
Meanwhile, the eyes are focused on Tadej Pogacar, who this season has shown himself to be at a much higher level than several of his rivals, although certainly in the pass Through Flanders he left a little more achievable with 10th more than 2 minutes behind winner Mathieu van der Poel.
However, 3 of the 5 races he has contested to date have been won, an argument enough to determine that he will come with all his strength to stay with this historic competition.
On the other hand, Mathieu hopes to continue on the same path of victory and the good results he has been following since he was active again at Milan Sanremo, where he opened the year with a third place behind Bahrain Victorious's Matej Mohoric and France's Anthony Turgis of Total Direct Energie.
He would then win a hard-fought stage at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali in Italy, and then pick up a triumph in Flanders, Belgium in the aforementioned race.
Thus, the sporting spectacle will undoubtedly take place between a platoon that is clearly very strong and that sends its best cards to find victory. However, here the strategies will be the main protagonists of the teams if they really want to counterbalance the two main favorites.
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