2025 has just begun, the Tour Down Under is giving us the first emotions, but the season has yet to truly kick off and it will do so when the great champions start to show themselves. In the meantime, there's a lot of curiosity about where and when the big challenges will take place and who will win the spring Classics. Many try to make predictions, but there's someone who has an excellent intuition, not only because he's a son of a legend and was a good rider, but because in his career as a sports director he has discovered many champions. This is Axel Merckx, who in his column in the newspaper La Derniere Heure, has made some hypotheses about the riders who will dominate this season.

Axel, son of the Cannibal Eddy Merckx, is thinking about Van der Poel, Van Aert and Pogacar, but is certain that Evenepoel will also have a great season.

«If I have to think about the Tour of Flanders, I believe that Van der Poel will manage to win his fourth victory – said the Belgian -: Mathieu has all the cards to make the overtake and bring the record to 4 victories, even though Pogacar's presence at the start will inevitably change the physiognomy of the race. I'm convinced that the rivalry with Wout van Aert also helps him stay motivated in his approach to the Classics, and the Ronde is a race that suits him perfectly».

So if Van der Poel could be the number one candidate to win the Ronde, who could win Paris-Roubaix? For Axel Merckx, the most credited becomes Wout Van Aert, who could arrive at success not only thanks to physical strength, but also for his great determination and character. «The mental strength he showed after the fall at the Vuelta was impressive. It's something we sometimes tend to trivialize among professional athletes, but getting back up from hard blows like his is not a gift for all riders. Wout fell a lot in 2024, sometimes you can be unconsciously a bit more hesitant which leads to this type of incident. I think Van Aert's possibility of beating van der Poel in Paris-Roubaix is probably greater than in the Tour of Flanders. This race is so unique that a lot of things can happen. In short, I hope that Wout will finally be able to write his name in the palmares of the Ronde or Roubaix».

Regarding the other young Belgian champions, Axel Merckx is confident in Remco Evenepoel for the Tour de France podium and in Arnaud de Lie, who in his opinion will be among the protagonists of the spring.

«I see no reason why Remco should not climb onto the Paris podium. After two phenomena like Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, he is clearly the strongest rider in three-week races. Last summer, his first pursuer Almeida was behind him by almost ten minutes; this says enough to my eyes. The question I ask myself more is to what extent he will be able to get a bit closer to the first two positions. Remco knows that Pogacar and Vingegaard are currently superior to him in high mountains and he will have to work on this if he ever wants to win. Regarding Arnaud de Lie, I must admit that I am a big fan. He has a very appealing personality and having had the opportunity to compare myself with him in youth races, before he became a professional, I can say that despite a difficult season, I think he will now stand out. I followed his training on Strava and I believe I understood the type of work and what it was aimed at».

After many analyses and hypotheses, we come to the most anticipated question: who will win the Tour de France? «It's difficult to give an answer to this question, because until today we have never seen Vingegaard and Pogacar compete at the same level. We always arrived at this clash with one of the two coming from an injury. In 2023, Tadej was forced to deal with a preparation hindered by a wrist fracture following the fall at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Last year, it was the Dane's turn to experience a preparation completely disrupted by his terrible accident in the Basque Country. Like all cycling fans, I believe, want and dream of seeing these two fantastic riders fight shoulder to shoulder in July in the first two positions of the classification. We could witness a sumptuous show, with absolutely thrilling suspense. Calibrating their best level against each other is therefore particularly difficult».