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When I read the startlist, I can think of many potential winners. No clear favourite(s).
What is funny is that when I read the startlist of the Besançon Classic which will take place at the same time, I have the same issue of not seeing any clear favourite, but for the opposite reason: I cannot think of any potential winner 😆
Has pidcock raced anything since Alula? Has Evenepoel since his crash? Some strong riders for sure 😄
Pidcock? Yes, his last race was Milan–San-Remo. And you probably remember him riding with Pogatchar on the Strade Bianche. So his pause was a small month.
For Evenepoel, it is indeed the first time we shall see him this year.
And there are the others :
15 minutes after I switched the channel on that race, I was already tired of seeing Evenepoel. 😃 I usually enjoy this race and the various attacks on the various surfaces and slopes, but Evenepoel turned this edition into another of those "50 km to go ? I am going away, bye-bye" races which have become too common.
At 40 km from the goal, Van Aert's lower lip was already dropping, which usually means he is fairly cooked, so in my opinion the question was whether he would finish 2^nd^ or 3^rd^. Blackmore relaying those two = committing suicide, so Van Aert would finish 2^nd^.
However, Van Aert played the end perfectly, refusing to relay in the last 2 km, 'neutralising' the last uphill slope, which allowed him to recover a bit and at the same time to reach a late sprint at low speed: at 200m from the line, the setting couldn't be better. The problem is that, this year, he really hasn't got any sprint at all...