Pogacar's power simply inevitable at Tour of Flanders despite Evenepoel's impact

The build-up to this Tour of Flanders was pockmarked with enticing narratives. Wout van Aert’s rising form was already lifting Flemish hearts when Evenepoel’s announcement raised home hopes still further. And Mathieu van der Poel hadn’t gone away, you know. Maybe, just maybe, Pogačar would find himself vulnerable to an upset this time.

But in the end, it all boiled down to numbers. Pogačar’s numbers, which nobody else could hit. As ever in these parts, Van der Poel matched them for longer than anybody else, but even he reached his breaking point. As surely as water boils at 100°C, any resistance to Pogačar at the Ronde is vaporised on the last time up the Oude Kwaremont.

“Cycling is very simple: I was riding 650 watts and just couldn’t hold his wheel,” Van der Poel confessed afterwards.

Once Pogačar put a couple of bike lengths into Van der Poel on the Kwaremont, the race was over. There was still 18km left to Oudenaarde and there was still the Paterberg to come, but we had seen this play out before, when Pogačar cruised away to win the Ronde in 2023 and 2025.

Indeed, we see this play out pretty much every time Pogačar pins on a number these days. Last September, he won the World Championships in Kigali with a 66km solo attack. A week later, he claimed the European Championships with a 75km lone effort. He rounded out his season with winning solo attacks of 22km at Tre Valli Varesine and 35km at Il Lombardia.

The sequence has continued into the new campaign, which began with a 79km solo raid to win Strade Bianche. Pogačar followed that up by pipping Tom Pidcock to win Milan-Sanremo but La Primavera is always a race of fine margins, and this edition was still defined by the world champion’s astonishing onslaught after his crash in the finale.

At that point, the Tour of Flanders looked a drably predictable affair, destined to produce yet another routine miracle from Pogačar, but Evenepoel’s late entry upended the news cycle in the build-up to the big day. 

And to Evenepoel’s immense credit, his presence had a real impact on the race and on Pogačar’s own strategy, but that still couldn’t prevent the Ronde from arriving at its inevitable conclusion. In the Pogačar era, his numbers always trump any other narrative, no matter how compelling it might be.

Still, this Tour of Flanders at least took a scenic route towards the usual outcome. Alpecin-Premier Tech’s decision to send their usual breakaway killer Silvan Dillier up the road in the early move put the onus on Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad to take on almost all the policing duties in the peloton.

When UAE forced a key split on the Molenberg with over 100km to go, it initially looked as though their aggression had backfired. The debutant Evenepoel’s biggest problem, we were told beforehand, would be positioning himself for the pinch points in the finale. That task was facilitated considerably by UAE whittling the race down to just the strongmen.

Pogačar himself, meanwhile, looked to be doing too much too soon, taking curiously long turns at the head of the front group of almost 30 riders. A generation ago, a Ronde favourite would never have hit the wind so needlessly at that point. At times, one has to wonder what advice Pogačar gets from his team car beyond time gaps.

But then again, what instruction does a rider like this need? The normal rules don’t apply to Pogačar, who is strong enough to make the kind of mistakes that would torpedo anyone else’s challenge. 

When Pogačar launched his first acceleration on the Oude Kwaremont with 55km to go, Van Aert was the first to follow, but that defiant effort would essentially end his challenge. By the summit, only Van der Poel and Evenepoel remained with Pogačar. The podium was already decided.

Three became two on the Paterberg, where Evenepoel had the impetuousness to challenge Pogačar by riding side by side with him as they approached the steepest section. Pogačar was always likely to take that challenge as an affront, and he dialled up the pressure just enough to burn off Evenepoel but not so much as to roast Van der Poel. 

For the remaining 51km, Evenepoel would produce the most grimly determined pursuit since Tommy Lee Jones turn in The Fugitive, but every time he had Pogačar in his sights, the world champion would find a way to disappear all over again. 

The key moments came just before the Koppenberg and again before Maria Borrestraat, where Evenepoel closed to within five seconds of the front two. Van der Poel seemed keen on – or at least indifferent to – the idea of Evenepoel latching back on, but Pogačar realised the danger. 

Pogačar was surely already thinking ahead to the finale. The last situation he wanted behind him after his attack on the last time up the Oude Kwaremont was Evenepoel combining forces with Van der Poel in a joint pursuit. Keeping his two remaining rivals apart was his priority.

In the end, however, Pogačar was on a level entirely of his own here, despite the obvious merits of the men who flanked him on the podium in Oudenaarde. 

Evenepoel was a valiant debutant, proving once again that he is one of the very best bike riders in the world, doubters be damned. It also was a performance of such resolve that it made Red Bull’s subterfuge over his participation beforehand seem all the more needless. 

Van der Poel, meanwhile, has now finished on the podium of the Tour of Flanders for the seventh year in a row. He has won the race a record-equalling three times, and were it not for Pogačar, he would have five or perhaps even six Tours of Flanders to his name. He is, by any metric, one of the greatest Classics riders ever seen.

And yet even Van der Poel himself couldn’t hold a candle to Pogačar in the final reckoning. The Slovenian is simply too good even for one of the very best ever to do it. 

Pogačar will go again next Sunday at Paris-Roubaix, the one Monument missing from his checklist. By the logic of any era preceding this one, Pogačar shouldn’t even be a contender. He only weighs 66kg, after all, and it will be only his fourth race day of the season. 

But on the evidence of the Tour of Flanders, he will line up in Compiègne as the favourite. It’s hard to make sense of it; that’s just how it is.