Jumbo-Visma DS: "I secretly hope that Pogacar will ride the Giro and that he is not in the Tour of Flanders"

Jumbo-Visma have had a brilliant season on the road and were arguably the most dominant team, however they missed out on a monument win. They are chasing that one, team DS Merijn Zeeman hopes that Tadej Pogacar focuses elsewhere as his climbing ability proved too much for the competition this year.

"Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel in particular do not make it easy for us. They were really a lot better than us in the Tour of Flanders, so we have to come up with a trick to beat those men," Zeeman told NOS. "That is a great challenge and that is also what sport is about. It is up to us to make plans for this in the coming weeks."

Jumbo-Visma had great depth throughout the entire spring, with Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot and Nathan van Hooydonck also putting on brilliant performances. However Flanders is a different beast and one where tactics are not as key as having the legs in the day. Van Aert pulled off a strong performance but on steep ascents such as the Oude Kwaremont, Koppenberg and Paterberg, the advantage was towards the lightweight Tadej Pogacar.

"It starts with getting them physically to the best level ever and coming up with something tactically. I secretly hope that Pogacar will ride the Giro and that he is not in the Tour of Flanders, that would certainly help us," the leader of the Dutch team says. Whilst this is the case more in the Flandrien classics, he believes that in Paris-Roubaix van Aert does not find this disadvantage when it comes to his main rivals.

"That is the case in the Tour, but I think he is really Mathieu's equal in Paris-Roubaix. There it is just how things turn out and the bad luck factor also plays a role," he continues. This year it was that exactly which decided the race, as Wout van Aert punctured during an attack on one of the final cobbled sectors. Mathieu van der Poel then rode away for a solo win afterwards.

Roubaix is perhaps the best suited monument to the Belgian and one where Jumbo-Visma puts as much focus in. And 2024 will be no exception: "That is definitely the race that suits him best, but the Tour of Flanders is something very special for Wout, so we will definitely do everything we can for that again next year."