Well, the 2024 spring Classics are officially underway after the men’s and women’s pelotons hit the cobbles and hills of Flanders to take on the men’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, and the women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland.
We may still be some time away from the biggest meets of the cobbled Classics campaign, with races such as Gent-Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix lying weeks ahead, but there was still plenty to enjoy and discuss at the dawn of a new Classics season.
The quartet of races offered up few answers to questions about who might triumph at those all-important Monuments in early April, but there was much to digest regardless.
On the men’s side, ‘Are Visma-Lease a Bike unstoppable?’ remains the main question going forward, while that same question posed about the usually dominant women’s team, SD Worx-Protime, has just been answered. Elsewhere, we witnessed the continuation of the trend to start the attacking action from a long, long way out, as well as some quality efforts and results outside the ‘big two’ super teams.
For all that analysis and more, plus another raising of the ever-more familiar question ‘Are QuickStep OK?’, read on courtesy of our reporter on the ground in Flanders, Daniel Ostanek, and our remote experts Kirsten Frattini and Simone Giuliani.
An unbeatable Visma-Lease A Bike
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The Dutch men’s team headed into Opening Weekend with the strongest squad on paper once again, with Wout van Aert, Christophe Laporte, Dylan van Baarle, Edoardo Affini, Tiesj Benoot, Matteo Jorgenson, and Jan Tratnik to rely upon.
Most teams were lucky to count one potential race winner among their ranks at the starts in Gent and Kortrijk, but Visma-Lease a Bike could look to five or six men for a result across the weekend. It was no surprise, then, that they came away from Opening Weekend with a third Omloop Het Nieuwsblad win in a row alongside back-to-back Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne victories.
Both results came after the team blew up the race a long way from home – with 130km to go at Omloop, and 90km out at Kuurne – with the aftermath of both moves…
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