Iván García Cortina explains his 'helplessness' in dramatic moment of 2024 Tour of Flanders: "Everyone is dead and you are even more dead"

Iván García Cortina was one of the great protagonists of the 2024 Tour of Flanders, being front and centre until a dramatic moment of the Koppenberg that saw Mathieu van der Poel launch his race-winning attack

At the decisive moment of the race, on the ascent of the Koppenberg, he took the lead, but ran out of grip and had to drop back to the ground. Just then Van der Poel flew past him in his attack for the win. Despite this, the Movistar Team rider continued in the front part of the race, but in the last climb to Karemont, when he was fighting for the podium, he ran out of strength and without options to make top 10 in the race.

"A little bit of helplessness because on the Kwaremont they were passing me and I wasn't able to follow the wheel and on the Koppenberg I had no grip at all," Cortina recalls post-race in conversation with Relevo. "I was trying to go on the smoothest slick but there was no way. I tried to lower the pressure so fast in desperation because if it wasn't there I was going to have a hard time later and in Kwaremont I was dead."

He was asked if he preferred such a race as a protagonist to finishing fifth, something Cortina denied, making it clear that he had been physically destroyed. "I prefer a fifth place to this, you see that they are passing you in the final part when everyone is dead and you are even more dead, my legs are not going, with no strength at all."

He ended by saying that without his grip problem on the Koppenberg he might have had the strength to finish higher because he would have "saved some effort".