Tadej Pogacar, the best of the fantastic three, wins the Tour of Flanders

Pogacar's attack 56 kilometers from the finish line that makes Van der Poel, in blue, and Van Aert suffer. DIRK WAEM (AFP)

They are the Holy Trinity of cycling, they say exalted, and infected by the festivity, the commentators on TV, three different people, a Slovenian who comes from nowhere, a Dutch grandson of a French hero and a Flemish hero of the people, and a only true God, the two-faced Slovenian, Tadej Pogacar, who in Old Quaremont, a narrow and steep road of two kilometers of uneven, old, worn cobblestones, has his paradise.

“It is the wall that suits me best.

We arrived out of breath, at full speed on the pavés, and from there to the end it's a matter of pure power, and since it's so long it's where I can get the most out of my qualities”, says Pogacar, who passes there three times, and the three of them accelerate, at 137 kilometers from the finish line, at 55 and at 17, and less and less can follow him, his pedaling so light and so powerful, his childish smile is the smile of the murderer, his apparent calm is his competitive fury, and the third time he goes out alone, and the two companions of the triangle that drives the fans crazy, and some cry with emotion seeing them transform all the races into a beautiful display of strength and desire, stay behind.

"I could only win if I came alone," says the Slovenian.

“And to get there he just had to attack the Quaremont.

He had no choice.

He reaches only the endless final stretch to the finish line of Audenarde, a hideous town, and a slender church tower pointing it out, and the Belgians' hearts sink and they say that it is the most beautiful goal in the world.

It is for Pogacar, who a year after being fourth in the dumbest sprint of his life – he reached the last meters only accompanied by Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutch grandson of Poulidor and achieved the miracle of multiplying his defeat: two arrived , finished fourth–, reconciles with the straightaway, the headwind, and raises his arms.

He wins his first Flanders, his fourth monument after a Liège and two Lombardies.

Only two other cyclists in history before him had managed to win the Tour de France, and he has already won two, and the Tour of Flanders, Louison Bobet (three Tours and one Flanders at the beginning of the 50s) and Eddy Merckx, the Cannibal, five Tours and two Flanders.

That is the value of the victory on Palm Sunday for the 21st century God of cycling, a more renaissance cyclist, good at everything and builds everything with art and joy, what a devouring cannibal.

"As they say, I could retire today and be satisfied with everything I've achieved in my career," says the 24-year-old Slovenian, who has 56 wins in five seasons among the best, and 10 wins in 16 days of racing in 2023. "I'm super happy and very proud.

Even if I don't win the Tour this year, I can already say that this season is a success”.

That Pogacar won in Flanders, the bastard and wild race that Frank Vandenbroucke said, the one in which circumstances are stronger than will – and Tim Wellens and Julian Alaphilippe and half a peloton can well swear to whom, like bowling without balance, a Polish cyclist named Filip Maciejuk, knocks down,

, sweeping the front row of the peloton from left to right when his bike spins out of control overtaking a square of sodden grass: and Van Aert also falls, magnificent reflexes to get up like a bouncer , as great as the reflexes of the driver of the Mercedes that drives the tires inches from his body -, it was not as written as other victories of his.

Actually, it is the first time in his life that he has defeated the two who make up the trinity with him in a classic.

Against both he has collided three times in San Remo and once in Flanders.

Neither Van Aert nor Van der Poel are people who like Liège or Lombardy, and in the fifth monument, Roubaix, which neither the Belgian nor the Dutch have yet won, Pogacar has not yet put its wheels on.

“The San Remo [a victory each, Van Aert and Van der Poel] is the most difficult to win.

This year he was in magnificent shape, but nothing;

I'm not giving up, huh?” he says.

“And to go to Roubaix with a chance I think I have to put on a few kilos and strengthen my hands to withstand the bumps on the cobblestones well.

Yes, yes, in the future I will."

And Pogacar raises from the chair his little body of a climber that in the Quaremont, in the Koppenberg, in the Paterberg,

it's dynamite, and he lunges at his fiancée, Urska, who tempts him with a tray of ketchup-laced fries.

Fattening diet.

In the second Quaremont, 56 kilometers from the finish line, when Pogacar's first fierce start, and the philosophy of harmony of the Hawaiian surfer Gerry López to steal the wave and stay on the crest, after the ferocity, relaxed as a yogi, Van Aert has begun to give way, and he gives way completely on the Kruisberg, the 16th of the 18 mountains, where Van der Poel unleashes his great attack.

There are 28 kilometers left to go and a third Quaremont and a second Paterberg, the father's mountain, a short straight line that rears up in the middle of the slope and reaches 20% and which you have to enter alone, a sharp right-hand curve after a downhill section.

On the wide asphalt, headwind, crosswind, which precedes the walls,

Poulidor's grandson who won the San Remo 60 years after his grandfather and Pogacar take over to distance Van Aert and to catch up with Mads Pedersen, the 2019 world champion who refuses not to fight the fantastic three.

Pedersen is hit one by one.

First, Pogacar, who in his third acceleration in his Quaremont, 18 from the finish line, was finally able to overcome the titanic resistance of Van der Poel;

then, the Dutchman, who arrives second at the finish line, 16s behind the winner.

Almost a minute later, in the small group of losers, in the sprint for third place, Pedersen defeats Van Aert.

The last slap to the flamenco who most wants to win the Tour of Flanders, the world championship of all the Belgians, and being a great as he is, and 10 days ago he defeated the other two in the GP E3, by the same Quaremont and Taaiemberg His family will not call him great until he wins in the race.

He suffers and the lovers of great cycling suffer, who all admire him.

The best from Movistar was the North American giant from Boise (Idaho) Matteo Jorgenson (ninth, in Pedersen's group);

Iván García Cortina, the best Spaniard, was 21st, one more link in a unique progression.

He was 24th in 20220;

23rd in 2021, and 22nd last year.

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