Van der Poel fights Pogacar to be top Monuments man

Mathieu van der Poel is one-third of his way to making history.

- FLO CLIFFORD

Only 269km of cobbles, circuitous, narrow streets, and legsapping climbs, at one of cycling's most brutal races, stand in the way of him and an outright record of four Tour of Flanders titles. Victory in Oudenaarde today would put him two-thirds of the way to an unprecedented achievement: winning all of the year’s first three Monuments in a row.

There’s only the small matter of one man: Tadej Pogacar. Between them Van der Poel and Pogacar have won 13 of the last 18 Monuments, and four of the last five editions of the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Van der Poel is yet to finish off the podium so far this decade.

The pair have a stranglehold on the sport’s toughest, most gruelling one-day races, and the tactical nous, physical strength, and killer instinct required to win them. In 2023 and 2024 they equally split four of the five; you have to go back to 2019 – when Pogacar was in his first year out of the under-23 ranks – to find a season without a Monument trophy for either of them.