"I feel like I've been chasing all day" - Mathieu van der Poel snatches Liege-Bastogne-Liege podium at the very last
CyclingMonday, 22 April 2024 at 10:13
Once again proving he never gives up, Mathieu van der Poel's frantic chasing towards the end of Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2024 was rewarded by a spot on the final podium alongside Tadej Pogacar and Romain Bardet.
"I don't really know how I got here on stage. I feel like I've been chasing all day," reflected the world champion post-race to Sporza, having been on the back foot relatively early on after getting caught behind a crash in the peloton. "I was taking off my leg warmers and gloves, but then they fell and the entire road became blocked. At that moment I thought that we would not get back into the races, but in the end, we succeeded."
With Pogacar a clear winner, van der Poel doesn't believe that early chase made much difference to the final result however. "There was some decompression after the past few weeks, especially Flanders and Roubaix. But even with the legs I had there, I couldn't have done anything against Pogacar," he explains. "So now I'm very happy to be on the podium here, because I didn't have the prospect of it for long. I only believed in it when I joined the group for third place, even though my legs weren't very good anymore. I wanted to end my classic spring on a good note and I succeeded."
"I now understand what they mean when they say that the cobblestone and hill classics can't be combined. We have to be realistic and even with the best legs I won't be able to follow Pogacar on La Redoute. That is food for thought for the future," van der Poel concludes ominously. "Maybe I don't focus on it anymore. Only time will tell."
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- "The Giro d'Italia 2024 saw a strong increase in audience figures across RAI networks, especially on Rai2 and RaiSport HD. The race also experienced a significant boost in online engagement, with record numbers of website visitors, video views, and media articles. The event reached over 700 million viewers worldwide...." Sorry, but Pogacar is boring only for ... envious? ex-riders.
maria2024202406-05-2025 - It's always the way in pro cycling - 1 rider wins and the rest,instead of working with each other to topple the better rider, they ride behind said rider collecting scraps that're left...
leedorney06-05-2025 - Better for the Giro? I'm sure viewers would rather see Tadej dominate the Giro from day 1, than see Van Hooydonck (if he were still racing for Visma) battle it out with whoever, maybe Uidtjebroeks (if he was in the Visma lineup).. pun not intended ,for the maglia rosa in the 21-day race.. A grand tour is not like a horse race. People want to see Tadej, Jonas, Remco, Primoz, MVDP, Van Aert etc... If not, I'll just watch the Tour of California.FredMan06-05-2025
- Respect to Caleb Ewan for making the decision to bow out of professional cycling. He's the only one that's knows what's best for him at this point in his life, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
santiagobenites06-05-2025 - Yeah, a big one 😁
DareDevil06-05-2025 - That's a surpriseleedorney06-05-2025
- You were doing so well up until the last paragraph :-). So Almeida did not win a single stage race with UAE and now because of contract uplift he can win prestigious races? Come on. The man was being shaped to get to this level and took 2 years. After leaving QS he had lost his punch, he is not a sprinter of course but he had a good kick, he also lost a bit his TT performance, was a disaster going downhill. All this time he was improving his climbing and now he is recovering all the aforementioned qualities he had before. He is not putting on a show because of contract negotiations, he simply evolved also due to changing trainer. I think he will do a hat-trick in Tour de Suisse and then go with no pressure to the Tour. Depending on how well Jonas or Remco recover and how tired Roglic is from the Giro, a podium might fall on his lap. Then Vuelta maybe UAE can compensate his performance by making him the solo leader if Pogacar is doubting. However, where I am really interested to see Almeida is the World Championships. I am hoping the race is split early and then we see Almeida picking up corpses along the Rwanda streets up until he reaches an empty Pogacar and then tips him over the line. Then I wake up and life continues.Indioshak06-05-2025
- Jonas had also had a speed wobble on that same descent. They have both improved their descending skills since then, and in 2024 took scary risks on downhills.Hill3306-05-2025
- Should be a good one! It's been since 2022 since we have seen peak Pogi vs peak Vingo. 2023 Pogi had injuries and a suboptimal preparation. 2024 Vingo had even worse injuries and a poor runup to the Tour. UAE team has gotten stronger since 2022, while Visma maybe less strong.mobk06-05-2025
- You'd have to be an amoral prick to work for this team.Matt06-05-2025
Maybe MvdP needs to drop the time-trial victories and concentrate on these, then he'll get there...
Time trial victories ? He'll never challenge for L-B-L ! Third place was an anomaly.
Solid ride and well deserved podium. Especially considering the chasing. He needs a year without Pogi or Remco and then he has every chance of winning.
It's 3rd place though
Yeah, sounds like he doesn’t realise how impressive it still is.
Blew everyone away the whole winter then did 4 monuments with 50% wins, 75% podiums and 100% top tens (with a podium at M-SR having been easily possible). At least as good as last years’ early season.
I don’t think he should give up on LBL, he may need Pog to have a bad day but there are not many others he can’t deal with (especially if he decides to focus only on the one monument) and Pog still needs to win M-SR and P-R so they can arrange themselves a win-win situation for another year ;-)
I disagree, he can easily get this, what's TP done for the last month...