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

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.