The cobbled classics league table

With yesterday's Dwars door Vlaanderen I think it's safe to say that the cobbled classic season is well and truly underway. Last month we had the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne to kick things off, and while I said at the time that those Belgian season openers gave off the feel of the road season truly getting underway, it's now that we get into the thick of the northern classics action.

In many ways those first two cobbled races felt like a cobbled classic pre-season. A chance for the riders to stretch their legs in anger and get a feel for where their form was at before returning to training camps and stage races further south and a run at the Milan-San Remo, before returning back up to Belgian ready to fire once more. And all the while the excitement in the fans has been building as they study the form of various contenders to see who might make the biggest impact. All the usual names are trotted out, but who really is the most consistent across the bergs and pave of Flanders?

With that in mind I've decided to draw up a little league table for each of the main Belgian races in the Flanders region, as well as Paris-Roubaix, obviously. Rather than stick with the UCI points system that would see points being awarded to the majority who cross the finishing line, I've gone with the Formula One points system of 25 points for a win, 18pts for second and 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 down to 10th place.


I thought about giving extra points for the Monument cobbled classics of Flanders and Roubaix, but in the end decided against it, if only to get a sense of the most consistent across the 8 races going back to the two in February. And I say 8 races because I've stuck with only those rated 1/2.HC and higher:

27 Feb: Omloop Het Niewsblad (1.HC)
28 Feb: Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne (1.HC)
23 Mar: Dwars door Vlaanderen (1.HC)
25 Mar: E3 Harelbeke (WT)
27 Mar: Gent-Wevelgem (WT)
03 Apr: Tour of Flanders (WT)
06 Apr: Scheldeprijs (1.HC)
10 Apr: Paris-Roubaix (WT)

Beyond this the racing moves from the Flanders region to the Ardennes and while I may well run a table for that too, there are just the four races: Brabantse Pijl (which is technically a transition single day race between Flanders and Ardennes but which tends to bring out riders from the later), Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Perhaps then I could just combine them with the cobbled races or indeed include the Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo for an overall spring classics league table. We'll see how this goes first.

Out of curosity I looked back at last year quickly and it would appear, as you might have guessed, that Alexander Kristoff ran out the winner with 83 points to Niki Terpstra in second on 54 points and Zdenek Stybar in third with 44 points. Kristoff's wins at the Tour of Flanders and Scheldeprijs to go with his 2nd place at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne sealed it for the Norwegian.

And so onto this year. We're three races in now and it's yesterday's Dwars door Vlaanderen winner, Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal) who is in the early lead thanks to also picking up a 6th place in the Omloop Het Niewsblad. Second to him is Jasper Stuyven (Trek), who won at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and got 9th in the Omloop, followed by Greg Van Avermaet who won the Omloop. Indeed Van Avermaet is my favourite to win this little league and if his attack yesterday had lasted 350m longer than it did, he'd have another 25 points to his name and already be on his way to wrapping it up!

While I shall keep the top 10 in Flanders/Cobbled classics league table active in the sidebar to the right, below too is a look at how that top 10 stand thus far:

1. Jens Debusschere (TLS), 33 pts
2. Jasper Stuyven (TSG), 27 pts
3. Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), 25 pts
4. Peter Sagan (TSO), 24 pts
5. Edward Theuns (TSG), 23 pts
6. Alexander Kristoff (KAT), 18 pts
-- Bryan Coquard (TDE), 18 pts
8. Nacer Bouhanni (COF), 15 pts
-- Tiesj Benoot (TLS), 15 pts
10. Filippo Pozzato (SEV), 12 pts
-- Luke Rowe (SKY), 12 pts
-- Dylan Groenwegen (TLJ), 12 pts