Dylan van Baarle won't defend his national title ahead of busy summer: "To be able to optimally prepare for this, I just have to save my energy"
Cycling
Spring didn't quite go as Dylan van Baarle must have envisioned it, but there's only as much to pity. There are still fascinating races ahead for the Dutchman, although defending his title at the National Championships is not on the bucket list. This comes as a choice of reason as the Dutchman is lined up to more than 50 race days in next three months. He won't be able to complain about low workload.
"I normally won't be there," he begins his story in the podcast with co-host Wout Poels. "It has to do with what will come next," Van Baarle refers to his plans to complete the Tour de France in support of Jonas Vingegaard before trying to help Mathieu van der Poel add Olympic gold to his palmares in Paris. And on top of that he should then travel to Lisbon, Portugal to the start of Vuelta a Espana where it should be all-in for Vingegaard once again.
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"There is one week less between the end of the Tour and the start of the Vuelta, compared to last year. To be able to optimally prepare for this, I just have to save my energy. In addition, we want to take as little risk as possible. The National Championships course is slightly less difficult than last year, which increases the risk of falls slightly. And the main goal is to get off to a good start at Tour de France."
Van Baarle will only ride one more race in the national champion jersey then. "Critérium du Dauphiné will be my last in red-white-blue, at least for this year. I have enjoyed it for a long time and I am very happy that I was able to wear it. It was a huge honor." Will it be an emotional farewell? "Maybe I'll shed a tear, you know," he laughs.
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- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024