Tour of Flanders

Tour of Flanders
Race details
Date	Early April
Region	Flanders, Belgium
Local name(s)	Ronde van Vlaanderen (in Dutch)
Nickname(s)	De Ronde; Vlaanderens mooiste; Flanders' finest
Discipline	Road
Competition	UCI World Tour
Type	Monument one-day race
History
First edition	1913
Editions	107 (as of 2023)
First winner	Paul Deman (BEL)
Most wins	3 times:; Achiel Buysse (BEL); Fiorenzo Magni (ITA); Eric Leman (BEL); Johan Museeuw (BEL); Tom Boonen (BEL); Fabian Cancellara (SUI);
Most recent	Tadej Pogačar (SLO)

The Tour of Flanders is a Flanders Classics road cycling race. It is held in Belgium every spring. It is a week before the Paris–Roubaix road race. The Tour of Flanders is part of the UCI World Tour. It is one of the monuments of the European professional calendar. It is the most important cycling race in Flanders. Its nickname is Vlaanderens mooiste which is Dutch for "Flanders' finest".

When the race began in 1913 the starting city was Ghent with the end of the race in Mariakerke. It has changed twelve times since then. In 2012 the race starts in Bruges and ends in Oudenaarde.

The race has a number of short, sharp hills. The race gives prizes to the first cyclist to go up 17 of these hills. These hills make the race very challenging.

"Looking back, you get a bit nostalgic, but from a competitive point of view, Flanders was one of the most horrible races to ride but one of the greatest races to win." - Sean Kelly ^[1]

Victories per country

#	Country	Victories
1.	Belgium	69
2.	Netherlands	12
3.	Italy	11
4.	Switzerland	4
5.	France	3
6.	Germany	2
6.	Denmark	2
7.	United Kingdom	1
7.	Norway	1
7.	Slovakia	1
7.	Slovenia	1

Belgian Roger De Vlaeminck climbing the Koppenberg in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

Records

The fastest Tour of Flanders was in 2001. It was won by Italian Gianluca Bortolami: 43.6 km/h.
Five men share the record for victories, with three each: Italian Fiorenzo Magni and four Belgians: Achiel Buysse, won three times in the 1940s, Eric Leman, won at the beginning of the 1970s, Johan Museeuw won the race in 1993, 1995 and 1998, Tom Boonen won in 2005, 2006 and 2012.^[2]
The nation with most victories is Belgium (68).
Only six riders have won two years in a row.^[2]
The oldest winner was Andrei Tchmil in 2000 at 37 years 2 months and 11 days.

Tour Of Flanders Media

Korenmarkt, Ghent (pictured ca. 1890-1900), was the scene of the start of the first Tour of Flanders in 1913
Marcel Buysse, winner of the second Tour of Flanders, pictured in 1913
Silent film of the 1923 Tour of Flanders (French captions)
The 1929 Tour of Flanders on the dyke of the Bruges–Ostend Canal
Statue in honour of Briek Schotte in Kanegem. Schotte won the race twice and holds a record 20 participations between 1940 and 1959.
Johan Museeuw took eight podium finishes, of which three were wins, in the 1990s
Filippo Pozzato and Tom Boonen attacking on the final ascent of Oude Kwaremont in 2012. Boonen won the race.
The Muur of Geraardsbergen, one of the emblematic locations of the race with the chapel on top, was re-included in 2017 after a five-year absence.
Antwerp has hosted the start of the race since 2017