🌈 MATHIEU VAN DER POEL 🌈 2023 UCI ROAD WORLD CHAMPION #GlasgowScotland2023
"It is truly history" - Dutch national coach full of praise for 'phenomenal' Mathieu van der Poel
CyclingSunday, 06 August 2023 at 18:30
Mathieu van der Poel has made history, becoming the first man to win both cyclocross and road World Championships also ending the long wait for a Dutch world champion. National team coach Koos Moerenhout was understandably full of praise.
"It was of course a very strange race. There were a number of falls for our team, which makes it more difficult for you as a team to get a grip on the situation," Moerenhout recaps to Wielerflits post-race. "We did have the right men up front with Mathieu and Dylan Van Baarle. Then a star ensemble remains and Mathieu drives away from there.”
Although he makes it sound simple there, it really was anything but. In one of the most dramatic World Championship races in a long while, even van der Poel's soloing to victory didn't come without drama as he hit the deck in the final few kilometres. “We had just joined his pursuers. They immediately said 'fall Mathieu'. Soon word came that he was back on the bike," says Moerenhout. "We were ready to go there, but a moment later you saw that he kept riding. That's fantastic."
“Absolutely a phenomenon. If you talk about the favourites, Pogacar, Van Aert and he belongs to them. Everyone is expected to win and make it to the final, but it's never that simple," he concludes. " And this generation of Dutch cyclists deserve to deliver a world champion one day, but that is no guarantee. Now that it is happening, it is truly history.”
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- Some things sound crazy until they aren't, what if he's actually right? 🤷vappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Why make a comment to state the obvious? Of course MvdP is much better at CX than Pogacar, does anyone doubt that But that wasn't his pointvappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- If you look at road alone obvi Pogacar is the better rider. But maybe MVDP is the better overall rider since he can win in three plus disciplines?mobk23-12-2024
- Correction on 2021 Olympics. It was mainly the Dutch ladies who didn’t know who was leading the race. Other teams like the Germans and Italians knew that Kiesenhofer was out front.mobk23-12-2024
- A champion turning into a sore loser. Or is he on coke again?
UltimateOpportunist23-12-2024 - If you look at the major races they’ve both been in, van der Poel had the early edge as lately Pogacar has had the advantage. It’s all on procyclingstats.RidesHills23-12-2024
- I wouldn’t assume Tadej can’t win at cross. He did a cross race, not a World Cup, a few years ago and crushed the field. It was a minor race. But he can win anywhere.mij23-12-2024