ALL ROUND TALENT

Historically, there have always been riders able to ride well on both cobbles and in the hills.

The di! ference in skill sets is not as great as that between those of a one- day racer and a grand tour champion (though if you go back far enough, the same riders could win both well into the 1980s).

The archetype is perhaps Sean Kelly, who won all the monuments except the Tour of Flanders (in which he came second three times) in the 1980s. Kelly has the distinction of having won all of his monuments on at least two occasions. (He also won the Vuelta, though fourth was his highest at the Tour.)

Modern equivalents to Kelly have been rare. Johan Museeuw dominated on the cobbles at the turn of the century and could win !lat classics; he could also climb well enough to win Amstel Gold, but his best in Liège was sixth. Likewise, Italian Paolo Bettini was good at the hilly classics but he never won a cobbled one.

The most obvious recent example of a rider who can do both is Philippe Gilbert. The Belgian focused more on the hilly classics during his heyday, winning Liège, Lombardy and Amstel, but his 2017 victory in the Tour of Flanders broadened his palmarès. Micha¯ Kwiatkowski has won MilanSan Remo and Amstel Gold, as well as E3, but has so far underperformed in the Tour of Flanders. These two riders, along with the !ive in our feature, are setting the trend for allrounders to shine.