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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ugh. slice and dice this any way you like. if you’re one of the belgians TRYING to believe wout is going to be in the fight at de ronde and roubaix, this is an ice cold dose of reality. my opinion is that nobody — ESPECIALLY his own team — should have been fanning any expectations of wout at this point after what he’s endured.
I just went through the list of events in his recent riding history listed in another article (so not including his very expensive legal affair and any potential trouble at home) and it’s a half miracle he’s still riding at all. He's outfallen Roglič for sure, who always came away RELATIVELY unharmed.
i completely agree. wouter has been through a meat grinder. he’s such a class act, a man of such character that he would never complain or make excuses, that’s why it’s so infuriating to hear him spoken about as if he was failing, choking, or in any way not fulfilling what’s expected of him. i get it, he’s a PRO, so part of what he gets paid for is to be a target for anyone with an opinion. fair enough. MY opinion is that he needs TIME to overcome a pile of injuries. i hope he gets there, because he deserves a pile of wins.
The final appeal he lost against his old team for « breaking » his contract.
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- I know it’s tradition and nice but to make the discussion more interesting, if an Arkea rider had driven up to tell Alpecin or UAE to ease off for Mozzato or Vauquelin having a P, would they have been as gentlemanly?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Exactly, that easily makes for a minute at the front. You don’t see Pog cracking often either (less often than MVDP even) but when he does it’s lights out and over too. This is completely normal and to be expected, at the level of competitiveness all these guys are they only crack once they’ve pushed beyond their manageable limit and there’s no coming back from that. When your rival forces you into the red to keep or catch up, it’s over, in that respect, well done to WVA who seems to be world champion in staying just outside the red for as long as he can.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- If I remember well, Pidcock slowed, whether out of respect or strategically or just happy he could ease off a bit, only he knows. Your point?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- 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