Adrie van der Poel: "The way Mathieu rides now, he can also win mass sprints"

Mathieu van der Poel has found himself a new role within Alpecin-Deceuninck this year and at the Tour de France he's been thriving in it. He's become the peloton's new leadout star, and father Adrie van der Poel argues he can even fight for bunch sprints at this point.

"We are very happy, but the party is not that exuberant. The penny now falls in the right direction, but they often say that you enforce it. We are one of the only teams that came here without GC ambitions, and then you can also take half a rest day on certain days. As far as that is possible," Adrie van der Poel said in the Vive le Vélo show.

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Van der Poel assisted Philipsen in the leadouts at Tirreno-Adriatico earlier in the year as he was building form towards the classics, and after the experience going extremely well, the team have had him in mind to continue the work with the Belgian at the Tour de France where had had the plan to chase stage wins and the green jersey.

"In the first flat stage it is immediately prize, which brings a lot of confidence to the team. The difference with last year is huge, but that applies to the whole team. You saw that the team was not really busy with the stages in the Basque Country, but with stages three and four."

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Sure enough on both occasions Alpecin and van der Poel led out Philipsen perfectly to the line. On stage 7 the leader of the points classification delivered once again with a third stage win, again with the crucial assistance of van der Poel in the final meters. “I prefer to see Mathieu doing those lead-outs rather than sprinting. It would be stupid not to participate in that, and then you also have to look back to spring. They also had a lot of support for each other.

"The nice thing about it is that they can enjoy the success together. The way Mathieu rides now, he can also win mass sprints. I think so, but in the sprint you always have to be a bit lucky," Adrie argues. Although van der Poel has a very sharp acceleration, he's never been very involved in bunch sprints as they favour those with sustained raw power - although van der Poel can do quite well on hilly days, specially those with an uphill drag to the line.

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Today's stage 8 into Limoges provides both with an opportunity to go for the win, and it'll be interesting to see how the Belgian team plays out. "In terms of top speed, Philipsen is faster and I think he can handle that trip to Limoges, but so can the Mathieu's and Pogacars of this world. However, Philipsen's green jersey is still very important," he concluded.

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