Jan Bakelants once again impressed by Tadej Pogacar: "He comes to a race and whatever he does, it's always right"
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar ultimately broke Mathieu van der Poel the last time up Oude Kwaremont, but former professional Jan Bakelants saw a strong Dutchman regardless. As for Paris-Roubaix which should favor Van der Poel more, he still isn't fully convinced about Pogacar's chances.
"This Tour of Flanders was predictable in some ways, but it was still incredibly exciting. How strong must Tadej Pogacar be to drop Mathieu van der Poel by such a distance on the Oude Kwaremont? It is impressive what he does. It is as if they are playing on PlayStation at UAE," the former professional looks with admiration at the reigning world champion in his column for Het Laatste Nieuws.
"He comes to a race and whatever he does, it's always right. That seems easy with such a spearhead in the team, but they do it. I haven't seen engines like those of Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel in the past 25 years. They do things that are impossible for ordinary mortals."
Pogacar's palmares now includes eight Monuments, but it doesn't seem to stop there. "He finds two more Monuments this season perfectly suited to him, with Liège and Lombardia. Paris-Roubaix is not, but who knows, we might be talking completely differently next Sunday. It is precisely because that race does not immediately suit him on paper that I do not put him as the absolute top favourite, but equal with Van der Poel, Van Aert and Pedersen."
Mathieu van der Poel could have achieved a record-breaking fourth victory at Tour of Flanders on Sunday. If only there wasn't a certain Tadej Pogacar in his way. Still, Bakelants saw a strong Van der Poel at work. "He may not have the record of four victories at the Tour of Flanders for the time being, but you could hardly call him bad. In the end, there was only one rider better than him."
"He was always with Pogacar on the short, steep slopes. Every now and then I even got the impression that he was playing with it. That slalom on the second climb of the Oude Kwaremont, that was signature Van der Poel. With a few good pedal strokes he rolled four men up there. Impressive. When I hear that he had to take antibiotics for three days due to a cold after the E3 Saxo Classic, it is very impressive that he does this."
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- of course it’s predictable. a dad is proud of his son. nothing else matters, and his dad was a celebrated rider in his own right. maybe if people respected the human side of this story, and these people, we would see fewer bidons thrown. lastly as a dad, I appreciate this. a dad should have be given grief for showing pride and love for his child. we need more dads and examples like Adriemij14-04-2025
- i willfully CHOOSE to believe in your theory about greatness being sharpened and driven by greatness, because in my ideal world that’s how i’d wish it to be. in this case, with mathieu in particular, i think the presence of first wout then tadej absolutely drives and consumes him to some degree. he’s a guy who admittedly gets BORED. and when mathieu gets bored he just goes and does something else. he’s very clear about the fact there are a BUNCH of things he just doesn’t really care about, and i think anyone who follows him has a sense that MVDP is here for a GOOD TIME, not a LONG TIME. my hope is that tadej’s greatness will keep mathieu focused and hungry. very sadly, wout no longer fills that role. he may again and i hope he does, but their career trajectories are going in different directions and have been for a few years now. i will be extremely sad for the truly SPECTACULAR van aert if his line MSR win is the only monument trophy on his mantle. at very least i want ONE roubaix cobblestone sitting next to it. he deserves to tell the story when the grandkids ask “why is there a big rock sitting up there, papa?”OCexile14-04-2025
- Why? He is being too hard on himself. No sane person will blame him if he stopped there and then.
KerisVroom14-04-2025 - You can find a quick explantion by searching for "finish line camera howtown". The camera only captures the vertical line. The photo that we see is a composite of vertical lines.KerisVroom14-04-2025
- Let us not go off the deep end for a start it us not attempted murder. At most common assault. Country dependent. Yes horrible to see and ob not a real fan of the sport or just a VDP hater. This has been going on for years look at Froome in the TDF and other sports such as football. That is soccer to the North Americans. Let the police do there job and hope the offender gets what is coming to him or even her.paultryan200214-04-2025
- Sure but talk about predictable comments, do we really need those (although this time it was more rambling)? Don’t love the media running after him to hear about it each time though. Adrie isn’t even that well informed about his son’s work, can’t they go interview people who have more interesting comments to provide like maybe his mechanic or masseur or nutritionist or driver,oh yes, they’re probably bound by nda’s, which is why no-one tells Adrie anything of importance, didn’t even know his son was sick before Flanders so some of his comments there turned out pointless.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- I think with Tadej it’s often a case of his mind’s will being stronger than his racing intelligence, he’s lucky to be strong enough to recover from potential mistakes so knows he never has to worry too much about going past his natural limit but under pressure he makes more misjudgment than the average elite pro. I think Mohorič knows that about him too and possibly saved him from himself.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Thanks, strange, I would have thought with digital resolution and light performance these days, you’d see crystal clear high res images like you may have seen if you saw the close up of WVA knee wounds pic taken in-race as he zoomed by. Do you by any chance know what’s special about photo finish tech that leads to this?Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Not to forget how their star rider is willing to play domestique for sprint stages, a few ladies could learn a lot from this. I was thinking, if either of Tadej or MVDP didn’t exist, the other could have reached Merckx monument level but then again, would they have the same motivation? Is it a coincidence they both have so many already and that the only other two who had more also rode concurrently? The one guy who pays the price of it is WVA who may come away empty handed, the best rider to never win a monument is surely worth an article.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- So good it never happened, this team with MVDP is one of the reasons cycling hasn’t gone to shyt too much yet, I respect Tadej but I don’t think he’s even given much thought to the who and why of financing in sport and how naïve athletes just get used as little pawns in a bigger game.Mistermaumau14-04-2025