The INEOS Grenadiers battled hard at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, with crashes halting momentum in Belgium\u2019s cycling heartland.<\/p>\n
The team laid some strong foundations during the opening phases of the 278.2-kilometre Monument, with Connor Swift getting up the road as part of the race\u2019s initial 13-rider move.<\/p>\n
On a day which saw showers and wind buffet the peloton, both Magnus Sheffield and Sam Watson were well positioned to follow the race\u2019s first key move following the Molenberg.<\/p>\n
A group of favourites pushed clear and combined with Swift\u2019s lead group with 78km to go. Swift himself had battled back from a crash with 118km remaining.<\/p>\n
As expected a major attack was launched on the ascent ascent of the Oude Kwaremont, with Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG) dragging a number of riders clear, before the front group split further on the Paterberg.<\/p>\n
Sheffield was well positioned but ultimately settled into his own tempo. Sadly both his and Watson\u2019s races would be ended by a crash on the run-in.<\/p>\n
Pogacar eventually distanced nearest rival Matheu van der Poel (Alpecin-PremierTech) to claim a third win at \u2018De Ronde\u2019, while Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull \u2013 Bora \u2013 Hansgrohe) rounded out the podium positions. Kim Heiduk and Artem Shmidt finished together to lead home the Grenadiers on a tough day in Belgium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The INEOS Grenadiers battled hard at the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, with crashes halting momentum in Belgium\u2019s cycling heartland.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-514625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}