Can Mathieu van der Poel be the Giro d'Italia's unexpected star? "We've still got some negotiations open with some big riders" Vegni says
Cycling
The Giro d'Italia was finally presented last night and we've got the first look at what the riders will face throughout three weeks in Italy (plus Albania and Slovenia briefly). Race director Mauro Vegni virtually assured last night that Tadej Pogacar will not return to defend his title, but one report hints at an unlikely headliner...
"We've still got some negotiations open with some big riders. Some have confirmed they'll ride the Giro and some have said they won't but I hope by the end of the month, we'll know exactly who will be at the start of the Giro in Albania," Vegni told Cyclingnews.
There will be no worries about the lack of quality riders though, as several GC contenders such as Primoz Roglic, Daniel Martínez, Mikel Landa, Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso, Romain Bardet, Antonio Tiberi, Nairo Quintana and more have confirmed their presence. Simon Yates is also heavily rumoured to be part of the Corsa Rosa and we should learn soon about teammate Jonas Vingegaard's intentions (whilst Visma will certainly have both Wout van Aert and Olav Kooij present).
Cyclingnews reports that one name the organizers are in touch with is Mathieu van der Poel, who has openly talked about how the Tour de France is a race that does no longer motivate him the same way. Ironically, this year the opening week of the Tour features several hilly finales that suit the former World Champion, but it's possible that a decision was already taken as he will focus on mountain biking this year and racing an alternative Grand Tour is a very realistic and at the time being likely option.
Van der Poel could make his Vuelta a España debut, however it's feasible that he could make a return to the Giro after the classics campaign which should end with Paris-Roubaix this year. The Giro features finales like Matera (stage 5) and Vicenza (stage 13) that suit the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider quite well, and at the time being neither Jasper Philipsen or Kaden Groves are set to race the Italian Grand Tour.
Vegni still hopes to convince a few more big names to be at the start in Tirana, and believes Tadej Pogacar's presence last year was quite a positive experience. "Last year Pogacar was the stand-out name. He didn't 'kill' the race because he's a huge draw and so people came to see him race and to win. He did that but for 2025 the important thing is that the riders fight for victory on every stage, right to the end in Rome."
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👀 @giroditalia and @girowomen are once again ready to thrill us! 💕
— Giro d'Italia (@giroditalia) January 13, 2025
📷 Swipe through the gallery to relive the most memorable moments of the Presentation.
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👀 @giroditalia e @girowomen sono pronti a emozionarci anche quest'anno💕
📷 Sfoglia la gallery per rivivere i momenti… pic.twitter.com/qW4ZbCHOKI
yeah, i’m kinda bummed out that mathieu chose this year to blow off the Tour, just because of those Week 1 parcours. but he’s had stages that profile the same in previous tours i guess, and with the lone exception of the Mur de Bretagne stage when he took the yellow a few years back, he just doesn’t get up for much of anything at the tdf, other than leading out jasper. so if the Giro would light his fire in some way the Tour doesn’t, then cool. i guess i figured that if he disliked racing the Tour (which he clearly does) then he probably just didn’t like doing grand tours AT ALL. he’s a complicated guy, though. maybe there’s just some weird thing about the tdf that bugs him and other things about the Giro he digs. he certainly was animated through the whole race when he rode the giro in ‘22 (?), winning the combativity award by getting into break after break and charging up big mountainsides day after day. we’ll see.
Could it be that the Tour gets on his nerves for the commercial circus it becomes that no star can escape from, that it attracts a whole supplemental wholly different bunch of fans, “fans” and journalists that often lead exasperatingly embarrassing interviews for who knows who and that when you’ve been around and at the top so long, you just can’t be bothered with going through all that each day for a few cherries to pick when there are “purer” races for someone just interested in appropriate racing opportunities?
maybe but i kinda doubt it. that’s basically the only life he’s ever known, right? was a celebrity athlete by the age ofof, what, 13 or 14? kid grew up with a microphone in his face. and while he’s not a wildly chatty, flamboyant interview subject (think sagan), he’s always genial and good natured. part of that is that he knows full well that he carries both alpecin and canyon on his back. while that burden is shared out more and more as things move forward, he has always seemed to accept responsibility for his considerable role in building those brands. as always though, who knows. he may not even fully understand why he hates the tour. if he does, i hope it’s something really weird! like he hates the way the french make hollandaise sauce and it just drives him INSANE the whole 3 weeks. “screw this, i’m DONE!” i guess he liked the hawaiian pizza he kept ordering at the giro.
Yeah, maybe it’s just a Van de Poulidor thing, family is an important influence early in life and neither was very well rewarded by the Tour no matter how much they gave He’s more Van De than Poulidor and I think his main goal was accomplished, avenging the missing Yellow jersey, a GC win being off the table no matter how many Poulidor genes he inherited. He also knows that despite the incredible TdF résumé and respect his grandad (later*) had he sacrificed 15 years of it for a measly 7 stage wins and no real Tour recognition other than the rather ambiguously discerned title of “eternal second”. So on an emotional level I would understand he’s not losing any love here, if his team and sponsors accept then he must have been able to provide convincing arguments, that we’ll most likely never hear of. * Don’t forget the shit other riders put him through for accepting to be the first to be controlled for doping over which the others went on strike, I’m sure the little MVDP got some lasting negative impressions from some of the first hand accounts he got of how your peers can treat you when you don’t follow the herd.
oooh, i LIKE the “family history” explanation! that one’s got some real depth and texture. you had me at UNRESOLVED GENERATIONAL TRAUMA. what i really do like about the whole thing is mathieu being bold enough to just say I DON’T LIKE THE TOUR DE FRANCE SO I’M NOT GOING. as you and i have discussed before, he marches to his own drummer.
Fans tend to ignore athlete childhoods, a lot of athletes do too but it counts for so much, from old coaches to psychological blockages, everything affects how we/they turn out.
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- His basic attitude always has been (and we know age often reinforces inherent values), if I’m going down I’m going to try taking you with me.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- 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