Tour of Flanders 2014

The 2014 Tour of Flanders took place yesterday, and it proved as exciting a race as was promised in the build up. The route was a series of circuits making up 259.1 kilometres starting in Brugge and finishing in Oudenaarde. The favourites for this year's race were primarily three men, last year's champion Fabian Cancellara, young pretender Peter Sagan and three-time winner Tom Boonen.

Rain showers greeted the peloton at the start of the race, but it quickly dried and brightened, making it good conditions for a race. Eventually an eleven man made it out front, the biggest favourite amongst them probably being Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing), but also in there was South Africa's Daryl Impey, Davide Appollonio and Wesley Kreder. 

Appollonio punctured and made his way back to the peloton, but the rest of the group carried on. Back in the peloton, crashes started to have an effect on the race. Luke Durbridge was quickly out of the race and on his way to hospital, so was Johan Van Summeren, Garmin's leader who won the 2011 Paris-Roubaix, who collided with an elderly fan who was also taken to hospital. 

The gap to the breakaway gradually came down as the race approached the Oude Kwaremont, and another crash, this time much bigger, marred the peloton. The man who fared the worst was two-time winner Stijn Devolder, who was one of Fabian Cancellara's key lieutenants. A couple of other riders to come down hard in single-rider incidents were Yaroslav Popovych, also of Trek Factory Racing, and Jurgen Roelandts, the Lotto-Belisol leader, who quit the race.

The lead group had reduced to seven at this point, with the peloton being largely marshalled by Boonen's Omega Pharma-Quickstep team. More attacks came, with Bernhard Eisel and Bradley Wiggins both trying their luck at differing points in the race. The Koppenberg was the first real selection as the real race favourites came to the fore, and the remnants of the first move of the day were swallowed up.

With just over thirty kilometres to go, Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) attacked off the front of the race, taking with him Boonen's teammate Stijn Vandenbergh. Then on the Oude Kwaremont, the peloton really scattered, when Peter Sagan and Tom Boonen were both distanced by an increase in pace by Fabian Cancellara. The only man who followed was Sep Vanmarcke of Belkin.

They soon bridged across to Van Avermaet and Vandenbergh, as the remainders of the peloton did their best to chase back on. Vandenbergh, with so many teammates in the next group, was refusing to work, angering his comrades in the break. It soon became apparent that the winner of the race was likely to come from the front four men, so Quickstep's Niki Terpstra tried to bridge, as did Alexander Kristoff, the 2014 Milan-San Remo winner.

As they approached the line, Vandenbergh tried to go, as did Van Avermaet, but Vanmarcke and Cancellara were playing the waiting game. With three hundred metres to go, it became almost a track sprint as they watched and waited. It was Cancellara who finally came through to sprint for his third Tour of Flanders infront of Greg Van Avermaet and Sep Vanmarcke. 

He now joins Tom Boonen on three wins, with Van Avermaet once again playing the bridesmaid during a big spring classic. Tom Boonen finished in seventh and Peter Sagan finished a disappointing sixteenth after the amount of work his team put in during the day. Yesterday was the day of Spartacus however, showing he really is one of the best of his generation.