Why Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert’s teams won’t be sensing weakness for the Tour of Flanders despite Mathieu van der Poel’s near miss at E3

In cycling’s current era, when the “aliens” of the peloton attack away, there usually isn’t any chance at bringing them back. Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar are the men’s pros that currently fall into that category, claiming all 10 of the last Monument Classics between them, mostly in dominant fashion and alone.

Naturally, when they face off in the spring at Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, those races have been closer, but usually in the absence of the other at the start line of lesser Classics, it’s almost expected that no one, barring injury or incident, will be able to challenge them.