Absolute Visma DISASTER! Neilson Powless wins Dwars door Vlaanderen as he outsprints Wout van Aert and Visma trio
Cycling
Team Visma | Lease a Bike put all their chips on Wout van Aert today at Dwars door Vlaanderen. They had the race fully under control but risked everything for a sprint with Wout van Aert, and although they had a 3-to-1 advantage, they lost the race to Neilson Powless.
The start of the race was quite fast and it took a long time for the breakaway to set off, whilst many riders abandoned even before the difficult part of the race. Joshua Giddings, Rasmus Sojberg Pedersen, Fabio Christen, Lewis Askey, Petr Kelemen, Ceriel Desal, Mikkel Bjerg and Taco van der Hoorn eventually went up the road.
The race opened up with over 90 kilometers to go, with Wout van Aert and Visma hitting the front of the peloton and splitting it to bits. Although there were many riders in play, the Dutch team today thrived in positioning whereas that had been their main issue in the spring thus far.
Bjerg and Pedersen survived up front and were joined by Neilson Powless, Joshua Tarling and Fabio van den Bossche. And then, the five-rider group were joined by Visma's van Aert, Matteo Jorgenson and Tiesj Benoot. Visma absolutely broke through the peloton before and during the Berg ten Houte climb. They linked with the front group, and in the next climb the trio set off with Neilson Powless.
Mads Pedersen and Magnus Sheffield were the main riders trying to bridge across, but unsuccessfully, and whilst behind the battle for the Top5 would become very tactical, in front the victory was between four riders in a scenario that reminisced the 2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (where Sky's Ian Stannard was joined by three Quick-Step riders).
Although this time, the Visma riders did not try to attack. A risky strategy, but it seemed clear the team wanted Wout van Aert to win, and in a sprint he was the strongest on paper. Jorgenson and Benoot did not attack and try to take the win, but instead led out Van Aert... But in the final meters the shocking scenario they feared has happened and the American beat van Aert in the final sprint to take the biggest win of his career.
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- I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.JoostMehrtens08-04-2025
- Just shows that LA is not truly repentant. JUSTICE was served. No winner, no second , no third on the podium for those 7 years. No real winners could be determined, ever. Lance got to keep most of his money , he really should can it . He is toxic to cycling.dave08-04-2025
- Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes riskHoopoeChai07-04-2025
- Even if not technically against the rules, this is just bad etiquette and frankly I hope the rest of pelaton remembers Arkea don't care about etiquette or honoring tradition which means they shouldn't benifit from it.HoopoeChai07-04-2025
- The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.acem8207-04-2025
- Crash did not help, Out of position for first attack did not help, illness did not help, pacing was not the best either. MVDP has never raced to his limits against other riders but this is his characteristics when he cracks, he cracks big time just like his first elite men WC RR. Against Pogi he needed to be optimized and he is notabstractengineer07-04-2025
- Yes, I completely agree! Before going to a doctor, I give my immune system time to react. If a reasonable amount of time passes and I'm not cured, then I go to the doctor. Fortunately, I haven't needed a doctor in years!
maria2024202407-04-2025 - A lot of medicine does nothing more than speed up recovery time 4-5 days instead of 7-8, 10-12 instead of 2 weeks. It is questionable if it’s really a good thing for healthy people to rely on it as it also makes your immune system lazy and less responsive next time round, making you more and more reliant on medication (surprise, surprise). A bit like glasses, the less you succumb to adapting their strength, the slower the deterioration. Unfortunately many bacterial infections are not so easy to fight without help, your body should manage in the end but it can take really long, I once had strong fever for 3 months trying to fight an infection without reducing work or lifestyle (the antibiotics at the beginning didn’t help).Mistermaumau07-04-2025
- In this case, maybe is my fault (my ignorance). Fortunately, my family hasn't been sick for many, many years, so I can't say if doctors in Italy are still old-fashioned. When we catch a cold (very mild, nothing that requires medical attention), we recover completely in about a week. This may have reinforced my belief in the 7-day cure. Thank you so much, MisterMmaria2024202407-04-2025
- I appreciate the No Excuses thing...bobo07-04-2025