Tour of Flanders Betting Pick: Top 3 Finish

The 26 year old Mathieu Van Der Poel enters this weekend’s Tour of Flanders race as one of the betting favorites. He’s also the defending race winner after a thrilling sprint to the finishing line against his rival Wout Van Aert.

On Sunday, April 4^th, Van Aert and Van Der Poel are once again expected to go head-to-head for the race win.

Let’s take a closer look at Van Der Poel’s chances of winning the 105^th edition of The Tour of Flanders also known as Ronde van Vlaanderen or De Ronde.

Tour of Flanders Betting Odds for Van Der Poel

The following odds are courtesy of the top cycling betting sites:

• To Win (+150)
• Top 3 (-125)

As one of the race favorites, and the defending winner, MVDP’s betting odds offer value for winning on Sunday and for finishing in the Top 3.

2021 Season So far

Matthieu Van Der Poel has been one of the best riders this year with four wins already. He started off his season by winning the opening stage of the UAE Tour.

WHAT A DAY! 💙❤️

🇮🇹 #TirrenoAdriatico pic.twitter.com/0zmK8QOtqZ

— Alpecin-Fenix Cycling Team (@AlpecinFenix) March 12, 2021

A couple of mid-pack finishes in smaller races gave way to an impressive victory at Strade Bianche at the beginning of March. He followed that up with two stage wins at Tirreno-Adriatico which brings us to his current total of four victories.

Van Der Poel had solid results in the next two races with a 5^th at Milano-Sanremo and a 3^rd at E3. His most recent appearance came at Dwars door Vlaanderen on March 31^st, which didn’t go well at all for the popular Dutch rider.

Is There Cause for Concern With Van Der Poel?

At the Dwars door Vlaanderen, which is a mid-week race that semi-preps riders for the Tour of Flanders, Van Der Poel finished 58^th overall.

It was a big surprise as MVDP was expected to be contending for a win and not finishing 1:41 back of the race winner Dylan Van Baarle.

After the race, Van Der Poel made the following comments about his poor performance:

“It just wasn’t my day. I didn’t feel good already early in the race. Maybe it was the heat. I don’t like it. I had enough to eat and drink, so that wasn’t it. Better now than Sunday. I’ll talk to my trainers, but I hope to be better for Flanders. I really don’t know what happened. I just didn’t have the legs today.”

Days like these happen even to the best riders. Look at Wout Van Aert as a recent example. He cracked at E3 and finished 11^th despite being with the lead group of riders for most of the race.

After all of the buzz over his poor showing, Van Aert came back and won Gent-Wevelgem two days later. Van Der Poel has four days to get ready for the Tour of Flanders. There’s no cause for concern at all.

Previous Tour of Flanders Appearances

Sunday’s race will mark the third time that Mathieu Van Der Poel has appeared in the Tour of Flanders.

His first appearance in this race came in 2019 where he finished 4^th overall, roughly 17 second back of the race winner Alberto Bettiol.

Van Der Poel came back last year with a vengeance and outsprinted Van Aert to win the 2020 Tour of Flanders and pick up one of the most significant road race wins of his career.

Van Der Poel vs Van Aert

Last year’s Tour of Flanders was the epitome of cycling’s best rivalry as Van Der Poel and Van Aert went one-on-one all the way to the finish line where MVDP won by a fraction of a second.

This rivalry dates back to their teenage years as they battled against each other coming up through cyclocross. The rivalry really became evident in 2014 as the two would go on to win many races and World Championships for cyclocross over the next handful of years.

Then the two took their rivalry to road racing where it’s been ramped up to another level. For the most part, they’ve been respectful towards each other in the media.

But, that changed last year at Gent-Wevelgem where their in-race rivalry allowed Mads Pederson to slip away for the win. Van Aert criticized his rival to the press and Van Der Poel fired back. It was the first time that the two took shots at each other via the media.

The Gent-Wevelgem took place one week prior to the 2020 Tour of Flanders where Van Der Poel got revenge by winning the race. Although things have calmed down between the two since then, I fully expect cycling’s best rivalry to determine the winner of the 2021 Tour of Flanders.

Tour of Flanders Prediction for Top 3 Finisher

I think Mathieu Van Der Poel has a great shot at winning this race on April 4^th. However, I believe the best value is with MVDP finishing inside the Top 3 at -125 odds.

To be one of the betting favorites and to get that kind of value for a Top 3 result is really something we can’t ignore. Take MVDP to bounce back from his poor showing at Dwars door Vlaanderen to capture a Top 3 spot at De Ronde and possibly even the race win.