“We Can Do It.” Just an hour before the Tour of Flanders began, Anna van der Breggen uploaded a photo to Instagram which depicted her emulating a cartoon woman flexing her biceps alongside those aforementioned four simple words. It was a placard bought for €4 that has hung up inside the SD Worx for some time, staying in place partly for its humour as well as its meaning. 

Those four little words are also four prophetic words. In the late afternoon, Van der Breggen’s teammate Lotte Kopecky would go on to also copy the bus’s sign, the world champion tensing her right arm as she crossed the line to win a record-breaking third Ronde van Vlaanderen, ensuring a victory photo that she can hang up in her house – just as she had spoken about in the days before. “That wasn’t a spur of the moment idea – I had thought about it,” the winner said of her celebration. “It’s because I have very strong biceps!”

This article was published by Rouleur during the 2025 Tour of Flanders. You can read the full article here.