Participants Tour of Flanders 2026 | A stacked field of stars for the Flemish climbs and cobbles

The Tour of Flanders is the second Monument of the season, and that is clearly reflected in the start list. Mathieu van der Poel, Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert were already on it, and on Wednesday the final decision was also made at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe regarding Remco Evenepoel.

That only adds more prestige to Sunday’s race, as the Belgian has so far never lined up for the biggest race in his country. It is a race that in recent years has been dominated above all by Van der Poel and Pogačar.

There is also plenty to watch for in names such as Florian Vermeersch (UAE Emirates-XRG), Matthew Brennan and Christophe Laporte (Visma | Lease a Bike), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Dylan van Baarle and Jasper Stuyven (Soudal-Quick Step), as well as former winners Alberto Bettiol (XDS-Astana) and Kasper Asgreen of EF Education-EasyPost.

The women’s race also promises a terrific battle in Flanders. Demi Vollering returns for FDJ-SUEZ after a year away from the race, where she will now face multiple winner and former team-mate Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx-Protime as a rival, with Lorena Wiebes also in that team.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma | Lease a Bike) has also come down from Andorra to race in Flanders, while Marlen Reusser (Movistar) already showed signs of strong form on Wednesday in Dwars door Vlaanderen. Also worth keeping an eye on are Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) and Elisa Longo Borghini of UAE Team ADQ.