The Course

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The Favourites

We don’t need the wind to split this up, happens anyway. Chances of a bunch sprint? Close to zero. Chances of a small group sprinting at the end? Well a bit better than zero. Chances of a lone winner or 2-4 finishing together? Excellent. For that reason I’m glad Pidders isn’t here (given up on VDS already*) and we can concentrate on the foursome of favourites that are Pog, Wout, Matty and Mads. They're not shown in order because MvdP must be the one to beat. There are others of course. Wout backups in Laporte, Dylan and Benoot at the top of the list with Binny, Moho, Ala and Kung in the mix.

I was going to throw in Casper for the Steppers as my outsider but he’s out of De Panne with an illness so instead I’ll swap a letter and say Kasper finally finds the form he had a couple of years ago.

Here's your startlist and good luck.

*No different to most years.

The Rules

In this game, only the race results matter. You're not committed to keeping the same riders throughout the series, you make fresh picks before every race. Our overall competition is just the sum of individual race scores. You're eligible for the overall even if you miss some races.

Pick 4 riders for the upcoming race. The order of your picks doesn't matter. All of your riders can score.

Riders score points down to 10th place. Less popular riders score more points than heavily-picked favourites. See below for scoring details.

The strict entry deadline is the official start time of the race, the neutralized roll-out or Départ Fictif. Be warned - if your post is timestamped one minute late your entry won't count! So do remember that there's no disadvantage to getting an entry in early, even the day before, because you may always change your picks up until the deadline. Feel free to rethink your picks when it emerges which riders are more or less popular with other players. If you make changes, post your revised 4 picks in a reply to your original post.

The Scoring