"It’s pretty clear who was the strongest today. I wasn’t good enough" - Mathieu van der Poel makes no excuses after losing out to Tadej Pogacar at Tour of Flanders 2025
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel put up one hell of a fight at the 2025 Tour of Flanders on Sunday afternoon. Eventually though, event he Alpecin-Deceuninck leader had to admit to defeat to world champion Tadej Pogacar, who soloed to the 8th Monument win of his illustrious career.
Van der Poel had looked incredibly strong, repeatedly being the first rider to latch onto Pogacar's back wheel whenever the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader attacked during the day. On the final ascent of the Oude Kwaremont however, Van der Poel's will was finally snapped by the Rainbow Jersey. Whilst Pogacar went on to take the solo win, Van der Poel was left fighting for the remainder of the podium, eventually coming home in 3rd after losing out to Mads Pedersen in the sprint from the chase behind.
"I was already pretty much at my limit from quite early on," Van der Poel admitted honestly in his post-race interview with Sporza afterwards, having actually been the victim of a crash relatively early on in the race. "Of course, a crash is not ideal and doesn't feel good. But the damage wasn't too bad. I was lucky. After that, we fought well as a team, and I did everything I could. That's why I'm happy with my 3rd place and the podium."
Classily, Van der Poel also isn't looking to the crash or anything else as a potential excuse, simply admitting defeat to the stronger rider on the day, something Pogacar did similarly when the roles were reversed at Milano-Sanremo recently. "I got pushed to the side just before the Kwaremont, and I had to come from far behind. Other than that, it wasn't too bad. The strongest rider was at the front, right? That's almost always the rider who reaches the top of the Kwaremont first," he explains. "It’s pretty clear who was the strongest today. I wasn’t good enough. Again, I never really felt great, and I was at my limit from far out. With experience and determination, I fought my way onto the podium."
As such, the wait for a record-breaking 4th Tour of Flanders win goes on for the Dutchman. "Everyone says the 4th win will come easily. But that’s what they thought about the previous guys with three victories too," he smiles. "Who knows, maybe it will stay at three, but I'm very proud of that."
And with attention now quickly turning to next Sunday and Paris-Roubaix, has Van der Poel suffered a mental blow with this defeat to Pogacar? "That’s a less intense race, although you need some luck there too," he concludes.
Tadej Pogacar wins the 2025 Tour of Flanders in style!
— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) April 6, 2025
He joins Merckx as the only multiple Tours de France + multiple Rondes van Vlaanderen winner
Pogacar is the 7th rider to win De Ronde in the WC jersey
One half of the RVV + Roubaix double is in the books#RVV25 #RVVmen pic.twitter.com/DRy8lWMajF
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- Apart from a few outliers, in athletics, premature developers who held age group records didn’t get very far later and most athletes who became world stars never had early age records, I’d be surprised if in cycling it was any different.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- You can enjoy it by all means but will you also take responsibility for the consequences of encouraging it through that? Because we all pay the price of the way it affects people, moods, behaviour, illness, violence, crime, social degeneration, etc, no real good comes of it or what do you feel there is to gain from it other than experiencing a momentary emotional high some might not be able to achieve any other way?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- There's no reason we can't live in the real world while enjoying the doped up sport.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Tadej definitely wasn't terribly out of the ordinary as a junior. Just goes to show what great coaching and a proper "supplement" regiment can turn someone into.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Nice one. Not 100% officially a placebo but in my early days of group training in Mallorca I and another guy were reputed to ride without food (and once I paid the price for it having to be pushed back to base). On one particularly long outing things started getting difficult and the other guy mentioned he could really do with something to eat, one of the jokers offered him a home-wrapped snack, the latest nutritional supplement on the market and he started flying, showing and boasting all the way home how good he was feeling. At dinner, in front of 40 or so of his mates it was then revealed it had simply been a premeditated prank with a cheap doggy biscuit. Don’t know if anyone later ever considered experimenting with dogfood doping, was just happy not to have been selected as the victim.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Veganpotter, I’d take that as a compliment, like not knowing how to manufacture a bomb :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Most of us really overlook the reality of what happens physically when a bike tire goes over cobbles, we are too focused on experience, feeling and intuition to actually look at what should be a microscopic slow-motion analysis. I think it would help many to better imagine what is happening by comparing the situation to differing boat types advancing on wavy waters. You start with typical boats and play around with wave height and amplitude and then you progress onto more advanced designs, motorboats, catamarans, hovercraft, jetskis, gliders on different types of waves. Nce you can eliminate most of the wave and just skim the tops, the wave topography reduces to something minimal, this is the grail of bike design for cobbles, tough because no cobbled sector has exactly the same pattern. Does anyone know if wheel size is UCI regulated or is there a margin?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Alsene, I tend to agree but it’s incredibly complicated to calculate who has what advantage in which particular situation as the variables are largely interrelated. As you note, the rolling resistance alone is affected by numerous criteria, all things equal it is easy to change one variable to determine whether the heavier or lighter rider has an advantage, however, when EVERY rider is free to play with ALL variables (tire pressure, bike stiffness, wheel seperation and dozens more), many of the advantages/disadvantages melt into a smaller overall a/d much harder to determine when there is not an enormous weight difference (we have riders from mid 50 - mid 90kg but most are much closer together). In the meantime each team has optimised the set-up for each rider so differences are nowhere near what they used to be 30-40 years ago but obviously there is and always will be some but without highly advanced scientific research (which no-one is likely to provide for free and investing teams will keep for themselves) I feel there is now little point in people like us trying to make any factor or point the determining one, none will ever outweigh the gains from drafting and strategy :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Firstly, it’s not them, it’s their doctors and consultants and people contacting them trying to sell their wares. Secondly, now that there’s money in the sport, they can afford it, and peddlers see lucrative opportunities to separate them from their earnings, not very complicated to follow, in fact, wasn’t the whole modern thing started by someone having access to an oversized sponsor budget as there was a good marketing alignment of nationalistic and feelgood stories?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Yeah, let’s just discuss important matters while the world goes to bits ;-) Enjoy your entertainment but stay responsible!Mistermaumau12-04-2025