Dwars door Vlaanderen 2026, April 1

[Berflamand]

Much, much, much more popular. Evenepoel already wasn't well liked before WC 2021, but after a post-race interview where he said he could've won, he had a lot of people against him. And they never let it go.

If for some weird reason Evenepoel and WVA sprint for victory in De Ronde, and Evenepoel wins, most people will be dissapointed.

I agree that Wout is more popular but I don't think the difference is that big.

I think it's more that there's not really anybody who 'hates' Wout. Even more neutral fans don't mind Wout winning/having success, especially after all his bad luck the last few years.

While with Remco it seems more like a 'love him or hate him' situation where he has a lot of fans but also a big group that simply seem to detest him and look forward to him 'failing'.

I mean, not that different from the situation on this forum actually.

But yeah, if Evenepoel wins de Ronde in a sprint against Wout, most people will be disappointed indeed, not only because he's more popular, but because Wout has been targeting this race for a long time and then Remco comes along and 'steals' it from under his nose. A bit like the Roglic-Pogacar situation after Pog's first TDF win I suppose.

 

[theyoungest]

Belgian fans:
Remco is the best belgian rider but WVA is really your people's champion, right? I never saw this type of behaviours with Remco but with Wout racing, belgian fans go crazy (even booing and spitting on MVP).
Is Wout so much popular than Remco?

The fact that cycling is the people's sport in Belgium also means that there's quite a bit of drunk hooliganism going on, unfortunately. And the Belgian media feeds into this by raising expectations way too high (Van Aert's buddy Bakelants being an especially ridiculous example) and then constantly playing the blame game when Woutje inevitably comes up short.

If Van Aert doesn't win it's always someone else's fault. They've blamed Primoz Roglic, Jonas Vingegaard, the entirety of team Visma, and I'm sure after Wednesday, Laporte has had plenty of threats in his inbox as well for not disturbing the chase enough. The only difference is that now another Belgian is in their crosshairs, so the Belgian media are a bit more aware of it.