The Tour of Flanders

Before the race began there was a lot of hype surrounding the rivalry between Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan. Cancellara is the down-to-earth strong man of cycling; Sagan is young, up-and-coming, and a tad overexuberant when he crosses the finish line first. Although Tom Boonen has won the Tour of Flanders three times before, this doesn't appear to be his year. Whereas he was a dominant force in the spring classics campaign of 2012, he has not been as lucky in 2013. His season didn't get off to a great start after developing an infection which hampered his training. He's then been held up by crashes or crashed himself in a number of races, as was the case in this year's Tour of Flanders.

So, since Boonen was out of contention, who was left? The favourites were obviously Fabian Cancellara, who is always a strong classics rider, and Sagan, who has proved himself to be an excellent all-rounder. There were riders such as Greg Van Avermaet, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Geraint Thomas, Daniel Oss, Matti Breschel, John Degenkolb, and Sylvain Chavanel, amongst others, who were all expected to feature. In the end, though, it came down to a tussle between Cancellara and Sagan. If it came to a sprint finish, then it was obviously going to be Sagan's day, which is why Cancellara had to ride him off his wheel.

Sagan was trying to get out of doing his turn at the front, but Cancellara managed to keep his patience and eventually it was Sagan who cracked on the final climb, allowing Cancellara to time trial his way to victory. Sagan was hoping to get Jurgen Roelandts to work with him to bring back Cancellara, but got a taste of his own medicine, because Roelandts wasn't going to work for the faster, stronger Sagan. In the end, Sagan had to concede defeat, claiming second behind Cancellara, with Roelandts in third.