"I saw him, and I got really angry. I was like, you want to fight, right?" - How an Astana rider's punch in Roubaix almost led to a fight in Calpe

It is not frequent in the peloton, however it happens more often than the TV cameras capture it. At the 2024 Paris-Roubaix there was an instance where Daan Hoole was punched by XDS Astana Team's Yevgeniy Fedorov, and when the two saw each other again this time in a training ride during Spain, it almost led to a brawl.

The Lidl-Trek rider shared in the shared in the Live Slow Ride Fast podcast with Laurens Ten Dam and Stefan Bolt that during the 2024 edition of Paris-Roubaix (won by Mathieu van der Poel), where he was racing in support of Mads Pedersen, he was part of a heated moment with Fedorov. This happened in a corner where the two were fighting for position in the peloton.

“After that corner, he just got really angry, and he hit me hard in the ribs. Just a punch. It wasn’t on camera, otherwise I think he would’ve been taken out of the race," he explained. However nothing came of it in the moment: “I was more like, I have to hold the wheel. I’m going to ride the finale in Roubaix".

However, the unlikely scenario of the two meeting during a training ride happened then in Calpe, Spain, only weeks after Roubaix. Fedorov was at a cafe with teammates whilst Daan Hoole rode by and saw him, which then rehashed the dispute.

“I saw him, and I got really angry. I was like, you want to fight, right? Let’s fight, come". Perhaps that did not happen because of a language barrier that existed, with Hoole saying that Fedorov had a teammate translate what Hoole was saying, but the situation didn't escalate from there onwards.

Hoole's story is to then be taken with a grain of salt, as it solved itself without any major confrontation or decisive action. Rather, it was a situation that didn't evolve from there, and later on was turned around with the help of Fedorov's teammate and compatriot Alexey Lutsenko who also rode for Astana at the time.

“After that, in [the Tour of] Guangxi, Alexey Lutsenko came up to me and said, 'hey you’re friends', and since then, he’s my mate," he joked. However the two have indeed settled their differences, as Hoole describes: “Now, when I say ‘left’ in the bunch, he lets me through," he added, with the two seeing each other often in 2025 when it came to battles for positioning during the flat races but specially the cobbled classics.