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ANALYSIS: Does Mathieu van der Poel have a chance of beating Tadej Pogacar and retaining Rainbow Jersey?
CyclingFriday, 20 September 2024 at 11:02
There is no doubt that the 2024 World Championship circuit is very hard and more than likely better suited to Tadej Pogacar than to Mathieu van der Poel. Is it still possible that the 2023 world champion can take the Rainbow Jersey once again though?
In Zürich there will be 3 hard climbs, 2 of them slightly over 1 km (Kyburg with 1.2 at 12% and ramps of 16% and the Zürichbergstrasse of 1.1 at 8% and maximum of 15). The last difficulty, Witikon, is 2.3 km at 5.7% with ramps of 9. Clearly, there is plenty of room for Pogacar to do some damage. He can go solo. But, beware, these are not the kind of climbs that Van der Poel will be unable to adapt to. This is not the Innsbruck Worlds, which was for pure climbers. This world championship is also perfectly suited to strong classics riders on steep climbs and a finer than ever Van der Poel could have his chances.
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Evidently, this is harder than the Cipressa or the Poggio. In terms of explosiveness, one of the only ones in the peloton capable of holding off a steady attack from Pogacar is a peak Van der Poel. The other could be Remco Evenepoel who we imagine will try to overtake the Slovenian as he did in Australia when he ended up taking the rainbow jersey.
We'll see, because normally everything will be played in the last lap and Pogi will have 3 chances to go as we have already seen and he will also have Primoz Roglic by his side. Of course, the UAE rider arrives at the Worlds in his third peak of form of the year and VDP in his second: he won at the beginning of the season and then in the Tour he rode more thinking about the World Championship than anything else;
On Sunday, September 29, we will see if the Dutchman can withstand the Slovenian... Brutal what awaits us.
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- Avoiding him is a good strategy, you get more wins and then you can compete in the TDF relatively relaxed. Pit yourself against Pogi and not only there will be no wins, it will be considerable mental setbackabstractengineer21-12-2024
- If you hold onto then, you blowup in a minute and then you finish 5 minutes down like Ben O'Connorabstractengineer21-12-2024
- Based on what argument?Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Agreed except the length of climbs, pretty sure you can stretch that to about a km unless we’re talking about half a dozen in quick succession.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Lot of contradictory information floating around world cup contenders, someone should do some tidying up.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- A bit much to suggest that Pogacar is better than MvdP on most terrains. The only terrain Pogacar is clearly better is long climbs, on any other terrain they are pretty even except flat cobbles and short and steep climbs (max a few 100 mtrs) where MvdP is clearly better than Pogacar.Velovibes21-12-2024
- The likelihood of RE improving enough at this point to outclass TP or JV is less than zero.verve82521-12-2024
- That’s the most stupid thing I’ve read for a long time, did you not go to school and learn even the most basic physics? Aero depends on one thing only, drag, drag depends speed and the relationship is squared and apart from maybe at zero or the speed of sound or due to side winds that relationship is valid at all speeds, it dies not “suddenly” start at a magic number. Very simply, the faster you go the more the effect becomes important. If you think 25km/h is needed to have noticeable effects you’re delusional, athletic WR are cancelled as soon as winds top 2m/s that’s 7.2km/h, why because the assistance is already too important at that speed and the times prove it. You don’t even consider wind which can significantly increase the effective speed for aerodynamics and you underestimate speed of climbs, 6% is ridden more at 30 than 25km/h, a speed at which early generation high rims were considered to have more advantages than disadvantages. And finally, as in normal races you can’t just switch bikes according to terrain, it’s pretty pointless to discuss climbs as a separate situation, the aero will have justified itself plenty during the rest of the ride.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- If you look at how much TP progressed in that 1 1/2 years you can no longer say that’s nothing. If Remco improves as much he’s a challenger!Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Froome wishing to ride the Vuelta...he won't even be selected for the team!frieders320-12-2024