Tour of Flanders

Tour of Flanders
Local name:	Ronde van Vlaanderen
Region:	Flanders, Belgium
Date:	Early April
Type:	One-day race
History
First Edition:	1913
Number of Editions:	89
First Winner:	Paul Deman, ()
Most Recent:	Tom Boonen, ()
Most Wins:	Achiel Buysse, (), Fiorenzo Magni (), Eric Leman, () and Johan Museeuw (), 3 times

The Tour of Flanders (Dutch: Ronde van Vlaanderen) is a road cycling race held in Flanders, Belgium. It is held every spring, exactly one week before Paris-Roubaix, and it used to be part of the UCI World Cup. It is now part of the UCI ProTour and is regarded as one of the 'Monuments' of the European professional cycling calendar.

History

The race was initiated in 1913 by Karel Van Wijnendaele, a former cyclist. Initially not a big success, the race was interrupted by World War I, but continued in 1919. In the 1920s and 1930s, the race became more popular, and is currently considered to be the most important race in Flanders, where road cycling is very popular. The nickname of the race is Vlaanderens mooiste, or "Flanders's most beautiful".

Course

File:Wesemann rvv2004.jpg

Road racer Steffen Wesemann climbing the Koppenberg in the 2004 edition of the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

The course of the race contains many steep hills, often paved with cobblestones. While it is often compared to the Paris-Roubaix race in that both contain many cobbled sections, de Ronde's inclusion of many steep, and often cobbled, short hills make racing very different compared to the flat Paris-Roubaix.

Riders who win both races in the same year are guaranteed eternal fame:

The most famous climb is arguably the Koppenberg climb, where the steep grade, narrow pass and (previously) poor cobblestone conditions have forced many racers to climb it on foot instead of on their bikes. An incident in 1987 where Jesper Skibby—who was leading the race at this point and was followed by the race official's car—fell over due to loss of momentum and was almost crushed by official's car, put a stop to the inclusion of this climb until 2003 when it was extensively repaired. It should be noted that while Skibby's foot was not crushed by the car, his bicycle was.

The day before the actual race sees the cyclosportif (open) race version of de Ronde where amateur cyclists regularly participate in large numbers.