Bahrain Victorious’ Fred Wright finished eighth at the Tour of Flanders for the second consecutive year, following an extremely challenging edition of the race where Tadej Pogacar (UAE Emirates) took the win.
Wright went across with a group of key riders, which included Mads Pedersen (Trek Segafredo) and established a sizeable gap from the ‘big three’ race favourites.
Unfortunately, the group could not hold off the likes of Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel as the eventual race winner attacked on the Kwaremont with 17km remaining to take the victory. With first and second place wrapped up, it was a sprint finish for the other top 10 places, where Wright managed to place eighth.
“I did the right thing being in that move, and they gave us way more time than last year, that same move. It was perfect. We got over the Koppenberg, and I thought I can try and get a result here. Because that is the big worry, Koppenberg, being with the best guys, and you just hear it on the radio that they are 40 seconds, then 30 seconds,” Wright said.
“I don’t know what more I could have done. Thanks to Kamil, who helped me into the bottom of Molenberg and that is where the move went with 100km to go. It was such a hard race so it was to be expected.”
Filip Maciejuk also made an unfortunate mistake which saw him disqualified. The young Polish rider was devastated following the crash he had caused and issued an apology shortly after getting to the team bus.
“I’m really sorry for my mistake and causing the crash today. I hope all those involved are in good health and safe. This should not happen and was a big error in my judgement. I had no intention of causing this. All I can do now is apologise for my mistake and learn from this in the future. Sorry again to the peloton, my teammates and the fans.”
Matej Mohoric also crashed with 70km to go but is still expected to line up for Paris-Roubaix next Sunday.
Pogacar, 24-year-old Slovenian, became the third Tour de France winner to prevail in the “Ronde” after France’s Louison Bobet and Belgian great Eddy Merckx.
Pogacar, who won the Tour in 2020 and 2021, has won two other Monument classics, Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 2021 and the Giro di Lombardia in 2021 and 2022.
Dutchman van der Poel took second place, missing out on a third title after his 2020 and 2022 triumphs, two weeks after winning the first Monument of the season, Milan-Sanremo. Dane Mads Pederson finished third.