The cobbled Classics season begins tomorrow in earnest with E3 Harelbeke and here’s where you can watch it.
British Eurosport will screen the race live in a two-hour broadcast that will bring the critical stages of a brutally hard 212km cobbled race to your living room. Highlights packages will follow later on the day of the race and the following day.
Defending champion, Fabian Cancellara, appeared to have returned to his brilliant best at Milan-San Remo last weekend, but ‘Spartacus’ will face two significant challenges if he is to add a fourth E3 title to his palmares.
Five-time champion, Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) will return to action after missing Milan-San Remo with a family bereavement. Boonen will lead a formidable squad that includes newly-crowned Dwars Door Vlaanderen champion, Niki Terpstra, and world cyclo-cross champion, Zdenek Stybar.
Terpstra soloed to victory yesterday to claim a third Dwars Door Vlaanderen title, his second in consecutive years, after breaking clear on the brutal Paterberg climb and riding solo for the final 20km.
But Peter Sagan (Cannondale) will be seeking to derail OPQS plans by adding a second cobbled Classic to his palmares tomorrow after winning Gent-Wevelgem last season. Sagan has publicly stated his ambition to win all four cobbled Classics this season and his mission will start in the Belgian town of Harelbeke.
The Slovak will be hoping to bounce back after a disappointing finish to Milan-San Remo, where he finished in tenth place, at the back of an elite leading group in which he had been positioned by the tireless efforts of his team-mates.
Last season, he faced a drubbing at E3 at the hands of Cancellara, just days after an emphatic victory at Gent-Wevelgem, capped with a wheelie across the finish line, left many commentators believing he would go on to dominate the Northern Classics.
Last year’s E3, however, fulfilled its unofficial remit in setting the tone for the following Monument Classics – the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. Cancellara’s victory in both after victory at Harelbeke will add significance to this year’s edition.
The Paterberg and Oude Kwaremont climbs will represent the stiffest challenge, with the former entirely cobbled and unfolding at a gradient of 12.5 per cent. The Oude Kwaremont, one of the signature climbs of the Ronde, is more than two kilometres long and cobbled for more than two thirds of its length.
RoadCyclingUK will bring you a full report of the action and in-depth post-race analysis, judging the significance of the outcome for the Monument Classics to come. If you want to watch the action too, broadcast details are below.
E3 Harelbeke
LIVE
Friday March 28: British Eurosport – 2pm
Highlights
Friday March 28: British Eurosport – 11pm
Saturday March 29: British Eurosport – 7am; 10.15pm
