page_title: Tour of Flanders
section_title: Nature of the race
hierarchical_section_title: Tour of Flanders / Race characteristics / Nature of the race
caption_attribution_description: English: Koppenberg hill during the 2009 Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) Classics road cycling race.
context_page_description: The Tour of Flanders, also known as De Ronde, is an annual road cycling race held in Belgium every spring. The most important cycling race in Flanders, it is part of the UCI World Tour and organized by Flanders Classics. Its nickname is Vlaanderens Mooiste. First held in 1913, the Tour of Flanders had its 100th edition in 2016.
  Today it is one of the five monuments of cycling, together with Milan–San Remo, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Giro di Lombardia. It is one of the two major Cobbled classics, anticipating Paris–Roubaix, which is on the calendar one week after the Tour of Flanders. The event had its only interruptions during World War I and has been organized without hiatus since 1919, the longest uninterrupted streak of any cycling classic.
  Six men hold the record of most victories, making the Tour of Flanders unique among the major classics. Belgians Achiel Buysse, Eric Leman, Johan Museeuw and Tom Boonen, Italian Fiorenzo Magni and Swiss Fabian Cancellara each have three victories.
  Since 2004, a women's race, the Tour of Flanders for Women, is organized annually on the same day as the men's but on a shorter distance.
context_section_description: The Tour of Flanders is known for being a strategic race, where race favourites have multiple opportunities of planning their decisive attacks. The tactical part of the race begins in the hilly region of the Flemish Ardennes, where teams and riders often have to react to unpredictable developments and shadow favourites make anticipatory moves.
  The steep nature of these hills favours an aggressive, attacking style of riding, making the Tour of Flanders an attractive race for viewing audiences. The peloton often rushes furiously over the narrow roads towards the climbs as teams try to position their captains in the front of the group. A climb is usually followed by a bigger road for some recovery, before taking the next small roads and climb again.
  As most hills are in rural locations or along small villages, the climbs themselves and the roads leading to them are often narrow, causing the peloton to stretch into a long line and frequently break into smaller groups. Consequently, the best riders are forced to continually fight for space at the front of the pack. The race is therefore both renowned and notorious for its nervous course, with some favourites falling behind early in the race because of a crash or puncture, often unable to return to the front of the race.
  As a consequence, the element of "luck" is arguably one of the reasons why there has never been a rider able to win the Tour of Flanders more than three times, as even the best and greatest specialists of their time suffer bad luck or are foiled by unpredictable race circumstances occasionally.
  Since the race's restyling in 2012, the climbs of Oude Kwaremont, Paterberg and Koppenberg, just south of Oudenaarde, are the heart of the action. The Kwaremont is a long section of cobbles that starts sharply before gradually levelling out. It is the site where powerful riders often make the race-winning move, as Fabian Cancellara demonstrated in 2013, when he attacked with Peter Sagan on the lower slopes of Kwaremont before distancing the Slovak on the Paterberg. The Paterberg is the final climb of the day where fans create a carnival-like atmosphere. It is a short but cobbled climb and viciously steep. After 245 km of racing, it is generally an ultimate test of endurance and strength.
  The race culture and primal competition is an identifying factor of the Tour of Flanders. Two-time winner Peter Van Petegem stated:
  It doesn’t really matter where it goes. You have cobblestones and climbs and small roads, and that provides the character of the race.
caption: Peloton climbing the Koppenberg
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