Tour of Flanders 2010

The road

At the start

Bruges, 262 kilometres, fifteen bergs

The 94th Ronde runs 262 kilometres from Bruges to Meerbeke over fifteen hellingen, and the sharpest of them come last: the Muur-Kapelmuur sixteen kilometres from the line, the Bosberg twelve. Quick Step start Stijn Devolder, winner of the last two editions, alongside Tom Boonen, winner in 2005 and 2006. Fabian Cancellara has spent the spring calling the Ronde a main goal; he owns Roubaix and San Remo, never this.

How it was won

1. 1160 km to go

   Eight up the road, nine minutes clear

   An eight-man escape has been gone since the Bruges suburbs, and by the hundredth kilometre it holds more than nine minutes. Behind, Sky and Saxo Bank take turns at the front, each riding for a man who has not shown himself yet.

2. 281 km to go

   First cobbles, and the gap collapses

   The Oude Kwaremont is the first cobbled climb of the day, and the eight leaders arrive at the foot of it with only a minute and a half left. Everything they built in the morning is gone in an afternoon.

3. 378 km to go

   Breschel splinters the front

   Matti Breschel drives up the Paterberg for Saxo Bank and the bunch simply comes apart behind him. Nine riders are left at the top — Cancellara, Boonen, Flecha, Hincapie, Hushovd, Hoste, Boom, Chainel and Breschel himself — with the Koppenberg next.

4. 460 km to go

   The break dies on the Eikenberg

   Stannard, Thomas and Hayman pull Sky over the Eikenberg, and with sixty kilometres to ride the last of the morning's escape is swallowed. From here the race belongs to the men who have been saving themselves all day.

5. 544 km to go

   Cancellara goes on the Molenberg

   On the short cobbled ramp of the Molenberg Cancellara accelerates, and only Boonen can hold him. Five seconds at the summit becomes eighteen on the descent, and the two strongest Classics riders in the world are alone with forty-four kilometres left.

6. 616 km to go

   Alone at the chapel

   The Kapelmuur is a corridor of bodies and noise, and two hundred metres below the chapel Cancellara lifts the pace without once leaving his saddle. Boonen comes out of his and heaves at the pedals and the gap opens anyway — a metre, then ten, then the whole cobbled street. Cancellara crests it unable to see the Belgian behind him, and never looks for him again.

7. 7At the line

   Solo into Meerbeke

   Fifteen kilometres alone and Cancellara rides into Meerbeke with the Ronde won, a third different Monument on his sheet. Boonen comes in at 1:15, Philippe Gilbert takes third at 2:11.

The result