Wout van Aert, Tadej Pogacar, Fabio Jakobson - nine talking points from ‘Opening Weekend’ and the UAE Tour

Even with the cancellation of the Tour Down Under, subscribers to discovery+, Eurosport and GCN+ have been gorging themselves on cycling for over a month now. But as much as an uphill assault from Nairo Quintana on Montagne de Lure in the Tour de Provence, or Remco Evenepoel’s brilliance in the Algarve, or the Wout Poels revival in Andalucia can all set pulses racing, everyone knows that it isn’t until the so-called ‘Opening Weekend’ that the season’s action really gets going.

This year, the first WorldTour stage race of the year, the UAE Tour, paved the way for the opening cobbled classic, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, which took place on a ‘Super Saturday’ that also featured six high-octane and action-packed races. Then, on Sunday, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne provided the cherry on the cake – an astonishing race of twists and turns, and one which wasn’t decided until the final fevered pedal strokes once a leading trio were swept up just metres from the line.

Ad/> Time to take stock and draw some conclusions from what was a barnstorming weekend of racing, off the back of what had already been a pretty decent showing. Here are the main talking points… /> Omloop Het NieuwsbladHighlights: Van Aert puts hurt on rivals to power to Omloop successYESTERDAY AT 22:52 There’s no beating peerless Pogacar In his first outing of the year, Tadej Pogacar lay down a huge marker.

Besides an untimely puncture the day after he took the race lead at Jebel Jais, the 23-year-old Slovenian looked utterly supreme in what is essentially UAE Team Emirates’ home race. Placing fourth in the short 9km time trial on only his third race day of the year was, perhaps, a reminder that Pogacar is only human after all.