“Do you have something for cramps?” - Alpecin boss lifts lid on Mathieu van der Poel’s mid-race struggle during Tour of Flanders 2026

Mathieu van der Poel’s duel with Tadej Pogacar at the Tour of Flanders was defined by strength, positioning and repeated accelerations on the cobbles. But in the middle of that battle, there was a brief moment that hinted at how close to the limit even the very best were riding.

Shortly before the decisive phase of the race, TV footage appeared to show the Dutchman speaking to the Alpecin team car. “Do you have something for cramps?” he asked.

The exchange came just before the race moved onto the final sequence of climbs, where Pogacar would ultimately make the winning difference on the Oude Kwaremont.

At that point, Van der Poel was still firmly in contention, riding alongside Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert as the group of favourites began to splinter under pressure.

The request raised immediate questions. Was this the first sign of a physical issue, or simply a rider managing the effort in a race where the intensity had been high from a long way out?'

Alpecin sports director Christoph Roodhooft offered a brief insight after the finish, though even he stopped short of confirming the extent of the issue, telling Sporza the exchange had been minimal.

“Not much, actually. It only lasted a very short time. Was it about cramps? Ah, so you already know that,” he said. “Mathieu thought he might get cramps, but I still haven’t spoken to him.”

That uncertainty only added to the ambiguity around the moment, with no clear indication of whether it developed into a real problem.

Van der Poel himself was quick to downplay the suggestion that cramps had played a decisive role in the outcome. “Not really. Everyone was on the limit, and so was I — that was more the case,” he said after the finish. “I tried everything I could.”

Those words aligned with what played out on the road. When Pogacar launched his decisive move on the final ascent of the Oude Kwaremont, Van der Poel was the only rider able to follow initially, holding the wheel before eventually being distanced.

From there, he rode to second place behind the Slovenian, once again emerging as Pogacar’s closest challenger in a Monument.

Within the Alpecin camp, the focus after the finish was not on what might have gone wrong, but on the level Van der Poel had shown across the race. “That Kwaremont is decisive because it is the longest climb in the race. On the other climbs, things were going particularly quickly,” Roodhooft said. “We can go to Roubaix with confidence, which is still a very good opportunity. Mathieu finished second today after a fantastic race, and we must not forget that.”

In the end, the brief radio exchange remained just that, a moment within a much larger story. Van der Poel was close enough to ask the question, but strong enough to still finish second in one of the hardest editions of the Tour of Flanders.