Both men's and women's Tour of Flanders 2024 routes confirmed with only minor changes

The organization of the Tour of Flanders has announced the route for both the men's and women's races. The course will undergo some changes for safety reasons, but the final with Paterberg and Oude Kwaremont as the highlights of the race remains unchanged in both competitions.

"The changes in the first 100 km are choices based on safety," explains race director Scott Sunderland. "We are looking for the main roads even more so that the peloton has room to speed up. The edition from Bruges, where we did a similar approach, showed how those wide roads also led to high averages in the opening hours."

Additionally, men will use the same approach to Koppenberg as women already did last year. "We have chosen to change the run-up for the men and align it with that for the women. A choice for equality, but especially in terms of safety. In concrete terms, this change means that after the first climb of the Paterberg, the riders will ride on roads where it will be much easier to keep an overview. We make the run-up to the Koppenberg more straightforward and eliminate the descent and sharp turn just before the climb."

"We also want to adapt our course to the way the peloton races. We want to anticipate and continue to develop the Tour based on the riders. That is what we are doing with this change, which means that both the Kortekeer and the Kanarieberg will not be included in the route this year," he refers to spots where the peloton often came to a standstill in the past.