![]() | |
Race details | |
---|---|
Date | Early April |
Region | Flanders, Belgium |
Local name(s) | Ronde van Vlaanderen (Dutch) |
Nickname(s) | De Ronde (in Dutch) Vlaanderens Mooiste (in Dutch) Flanders' Most Beautiful (in English) |
Discipline | Road |
Competition | UCI World Tour |
Type | One-day Classic |
Organiser | Flanders Classics |
Race director | Wim Van Herreweghe |
Web site | www |
History | |
First edition | 1913 |
Editions | 108 (as of 2024) |
First winner | ![]() |
Most wins | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() (3 wins each) |
Most recent | ![]() |
The Tour of Flanders (Dutch: Ronde van Vlaanderen), also known as De Ronde ("The Tour"), is an annual road cycling race held in Belgium every spring. The most important cycling race in Flanders, it is part of the UCI World Tour and organized by Flanders Classics. Its nickname is Vlaanderens Mooiste (Dutch for "Flanders' Finest"). First held in 1913, the Tour of Flanders had its 100th edition in 2016.
Today it is one of the five monuments of cycling, together with Milan–San Remo, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Giro di Lombardia. It is one of the two major Cobbled classics, anticipating Paris–Roubaix, which is on the calendar one week after the Tour of Flanders. The event had its only interruptions during World War I and has been organized without hiatus since 1919, the longest uninterrupted streak of any cycling classic.[1]
Seven men hold the record of most victories, making the Tour of Flanders unique among the major classics. Belgians Achiel Buysse, Eric Leman, Johan Museeuw, and Tom Boonen, Italian Fiorenzo Magni, Dutch Mathieu van der Poel and Swiss Fabian Cancellara each have three victories.
Since 2004, a women's race has been organized on the same day as the men's over a shorter distance. Since 2021, the women's race shares the Tour of Flanders name with the men's race. To distinguish between them, they are now categorised as the 'Elite Men' and 'Elite Women' editions.[2]