I did not watch Flanders (was riding with the guy who left our club on April 1rst). I've watched some videos. In one of them, Chavanel is ahead by a minute, then in the peloton Boonen attacks with Cancellara and Pozzato on his wheels. Did this really happen or is it the fruit of my imagination? (I don't understand more than 5% of that strange language they speak in Belgium instead of sticking to French!). Maybe it's the same with Chavanel, he does not speak that language, so he's just a French racer who happens to be on that Belgian team (maybe for Paris-Nice).

Your eyes did not deceive you.

Not only did Boonen attack his stronger teammate Chavanel, he did so very ineffectively, bringing two favorites in his draft. He then was unable to make it stick, and fell back to the chase while Fabian went around him and bridged up.

I watched it in (British) English on Versus, and as soon as Boonen went, Sherwin and Liggett instantly reacted with astonishment.

yes, indeed, boonen launched an attack with his teammate chavanel away, giving spartacus a reason to go as well. realize it's boonen's team and race to win, but i was questioning the quickstep tactics there. maybe they were trying to wear out cancellara? didn't work out too well for him - cancellara countered and dropped him like he was standing still. only thing that stopped cancellara from riding to a solo win seemed to be the cramps that got him later.

The Quickstep plan was simple. Chavanel was is the break all day and was not taking any turns when Fabian bridged. BMC had just done a long stretch at the front and the gap was falling steadily. There just had been several attacks including Flecha. I have no problem with Boonen attacking, he is much stronger than Chavanel and plan was obviously to wear Fabian out and bring it back together for a sprint. If you don't think Boonen would not have won sprint just look at the ground he made up by himself in the final 500m. So simply, Chavanel's job was to make sure Fabian didn't win, and Boonen was to ignore them both and attempt to win, after all he is the Lion.

This brings up two important points. One in never help the strongest rider to the finish in a small break. And two, the team leader is the team leader and in a race if they are hiding the whole race that is just them doing their job. After all how often did you hear Nuyen's name being mentioned until the final sprint?

In my opinion, with Chavanel up the road, Boonen should have followed wheels. He had that luxury because Fabian would certainly have attacked. Instead, he ate Flandrian wind and dragged Fabian and Pozzato part of the way across. Note the success QuickStep has had NOT chasing down Devolder. Also, in hindsight, I think Chavanel was the strongest man on that team. Otherwise Boonen would have made the final selection instead of sprinting from 300 meters behind it.

Boonen was definitely not stronger than Chavanel on Sunday. Being a good teammate, he won't criticize Boonen's surge and followed orders by sitting on Cancellara for 20k (they could've stayed away). Even Merckx said Boonen’s move “wasn’t really necessary in a situation where he only had one thing to do: park himself on Cancellara’s wheel and bank everything on the sprint.”

I love Cancellara though, even if he didn't win. He's awesome to watch. Oh, and smack:

“I’m very happy: there were fifty of them behind a gladiator,” Cancellara continued. “It was a spectacle and a double satisfaction: I lost by trying to win, the others rode only to make me lose. And in the end the one who was always in the wheels won. Congratulations to Nuyens, but for me [winning] like that has no value.”

Ha. More park racers could use this attitude.

But he was gracious afterward and congratulated Chavanel, knowing that he was doing what he had to do (take orders) by not helping when they were away.

The latest from Boonen:

"But Boonen defended his team tactics against this week's criticism, even saying that the choice of attacking while Chavanel was one minute up the road had been his, not his DS's Wilfried Peeters. "It was me who went up to Wilfried's car to tell him I was going to attack (on the Leberg)," Boonen said.
"There were still too many dangerous riders such as Van Avermaet or Boom, that were gaining time on Sylvain. I couldn't just sit there and watch them do it. Anyway, if I had sat back in the pack, I would have been blamed, too. I repeat: On Sunday, I did not commit any mistake, I just did my job!"

So in his mind, it was attack or "just sit there." It's like the whole idea of following wheels as the "dangerous riders" attacked was not even an option for him.

Perhaps Boonen is saying that the dangerous guys were "too many", and steadily gaining on Fabian/Sylvain [therefore conserving energy while gaining ground in the larger group], and that attacking --at least-- presses the race, creates some hurt wherein some of the dangerous guys get dropped out of the situation. I do think all those dangerous guys were going to wait a good while longer (they wanted Fabian softened-up as much as possible, for sure, right?), so waiting to follow wheels might have been less savvy on Boonen's part. Maybe Boonen thought it better to bring along 4-6 guys and end-up with 2 QuickSteps among 6 or 8 guys at the finish. Anyhow, he probably did think that Fabian/Sylvain would be swamped before the finish... and better to break-up the field sooner rather than later (knowing that Sylvain had been "resting" on Fabian's wheel... he had to know that Sylvain would have some good energy in the tank... not that following Fabian isn't some big work).

Again I agree with Tom, whittle the odds to improve his chances and there was no way the break was going to survive.

Sticking with my story:

If there was no way the break was going to survive, then people were going to have to chase it down. Let them burn themselves up and follow wheels. Also, a Cancellara attack was inevitable and could have been taken for granted. Let him blow the "dangerous" guys off the back for you.

I agree with Jeff(rey). Chavanel was really strong that day. I do think Boonen did the wrong thing. As for Cancellara, he was Cancellaresque!

What did everyone think about the little handshake between Chavanel and Cancellara toward the end?

Just a sportsmanlike thing after being off the front together? Or maybe Chavanel acknowledging the wheel sucking he had to do? Or telling Fabian that he now had the go ahead to race because Boonen was racing for 4th? I thought maybe they'd agreed to work on Nuyens together but that didn't seem to happen.

R

Ryan wrote : "Or maybe Chavanel acknowledging the wheel sucking he had to do?"

Chavanel is quoted by Cyclism'Actu : http://www.cyclismactu.net/news-ronde_chavanel_s_est_excuse_aupres_de_cancellara-14090.html#ixzz1JRNWf5QX

"C’était un geste normal de ma part, il fallait que je m’excuse de ne pas avoir collaboré avec lui. J’ai beaucoup pensé à lui, à sa difficulté d’être la cible de tout le peloton. Il a tout le monde sur le dos."

Chavanel added: "Mais moi j’avais Boonen derrière, l’intérêt c’était de le faire revenir. Et puis, j’ai ainsi pu profiter de son aspiration pour me requinquer, j’en avais bien besoin car ça faisait longtemps que j’étais devant. Franchement, j’étais pas mal dans sa roue, je me suis bien refait avant le Grammont. Avant le mur, je n’ai pas arrêté de penser à la vidéo du Tour des Flandres de l’année dernière que je me suis passée en boucle dans ma chambre d’hôtel, quand on voit Cancellara lâcher Tom. Je me préparais au même scénario mais Fabian m’a avoué plus tard, au pied du podium, qu’il avait eu des crampes"

Translation please??
My HS French is telling me something like "It was a normal gesture on my part, I apologized for not working with him. I have a lot of respect for him, it's hard to be the (focus??) of the whole peloton. But I had Boonen behind .............something about he couldn't stop thinking about last year's race which he watched on video in his hotel room. He was preparing for the same scenario......but it was too late..........something about when he had cramps.

Stephane - can you clear this up??

I'm seriously impressed with your HS French! "It was a normal gesture on my part, I apologized for not working with him." [Changes after that] I thought a lot about him, about how hard it was for him to be the focus of the whole peloton. Everybody is on his back. But Boonen was behind me, the aim was to have him come back. Also, I was able to take advantage of the aspiration behind him to recover, I needed that because I had been in front for a long time. Frankly, I was fine on his wheel, I recovered well before the Grammont. Before the wall, I did not stop thinking about the video showing last year's Tour of Flanders which I played back non stop in my hotel room, when one can see Cancellara dropping Tom. I was expecting the same scenario but Fabian told me later, next to the podium, that he had had cramps.

"Modo du merde"

Alaphilpe crashes in a motor bike in the race winning move. 

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/julian-alaphilippe-crashes-out-of-tour-of-flanders/

That was an exciting race. Wonder what would have happened if alaphilipe hasn’t crashed out. How would the tactics in the break worked out? Would they have cooperated? Attacked each other? We will never know

A unique situation watching the finale , not really knowing who you wanted to win , love both riders , in the end I was glad MVDP got a big race this year , I think because he was the “underdog” in the sprint 
the battle will go on and on !
they way the both went up the pattenburg was smooth like butter , the group behind showed how hard the climb is 

not to long to wait till the spring classics 

Think this was the first race that I missed the fans on the roadside

OMFG
hashtag: cyclocross is everything you want cycling to be.

so many high levels of hotness. 🔥

also love the champagne in the podium, I get that they are wearing masks, but the 3 of them click the bottles, none of them take a sip 😂

also, huge shoutout to Chantal Blaack and the Boels team. They rode to win in the most classic of ways, and they so seriously and totally delivered.

PatrickGrehan said:

That was an exciting race. Wonder what would have happened if alaphilipe hasn’t crashed out. How would the tactics in the break worked out? Would they have cooperated? Attacked each other? We will never know

."

I think Ala' would have won.

After last week, WVA would have marked MVdP and sat on his wheel in retaliation.  Ala' would just need to go a few times and they'd end up marking each other out of the win.

OMG i loved love love love love today’s men’s finish!! 

There will be moments of chaos, keep pedaling!!

eloy said:

OMG i loved love love love love today’s men’s finish!! 

There will be moments of chaos, keep pedaling!!

Wow! What a finish. What a race.

btw the women are still racing and it’s raining hard on them, last 20 km to go!

I loved that Madouas and Van Baarle didn't give up.  I wanted those guys to take it.

And I can't help but wonder if they would have been first and second had they not weaved across the road a few times in the final kilometer.

Wow , MVDP dug in on the patterburg and saved the day
i just can’t cheer for Pog
what was Kung doing?