The 2010 edition of E3 Harelbeke – as the E3 Saxo Classic was called back then –looked to be rolling towards a familiar denouement when Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara and Juan Antonio Flecha approached the outskirts of town after having forged clear on the Paterberg 40km or so earlier. Boonen had already won the race four times in a row between 2004 and 2007, and a three-up sprint and another Tommeke triumph seemed inevitable here.
In hindsight, it was the moment E3 Harelbeke went electric.
Just outside the flamme rouge, Cancellara surged unexpectedly and opened a small gap that Boonen, sprinting with all his might, couldn’t stitch back together. Two metres became ten and by the time Boonen sat back into the saddle the balance of power for the following week’s Tour of Flanders had shifted completely.
Cancellara freewheeled across the line as the winner, while Boonen beat Flecha to second. The Belgian champion put a brave face on his performance in public – “My form is more than alright,” he insisted – but in private, it was a sobering preview of what awaited him at the Ronde.
A week later at the Tour of Flanders, Boonen and Cancellara again found themselves in the winning move, this time without Flecha. Boonen knew what was coming and he probably knew there was nothing he could do to stop it either. Cancellara cruised clear on the Muur with the acceleration that launched a thousand YouTube videos and debates to match. Boonen strained to follow, but he was a beaten man. In truth, he had already spent a week staring at the writing on the wall after the dress rehearsal in Harelbeke.
It wasn’t always that way. For the first dozen years after its establishment in 1958, the race was known as Harelbeke-Antwerpen-Harelbeke and often lent itself to sprinters. From 1970, it took on the E3 moniker and the route gradually started to veer further into the Flemish Ardennes. But even though the roll of honour was always weighty – the 20th century palmarès includes cobbles grandees like Rik Van Looy, Jan Raas and Roger De Vlaeminck – its status as the pointer of Tour of Flanders form only really began to take shape in the late 1990s.
In 1998, Johan Museeuw became the first rider to complete the E3 Harelbeke-Tour of Flanders double, a feat matched by Boonen in 2005 and 2006 and by Cancellara in 2010. By then, the prestige of the race had long since outstripped its HC status. From 2012, E3 Harelbeke was promoted to the WorldTour, moving a day earlier…
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