Lance Armstrong believes Mathieu van der Poel can challenge Tadej Pogacar: "The man we saw win Paris-Roubaix today can certainly win Liège-Bastogne-Liège"
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel has won both Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix with relative comfort and very large gaps. Alpecin-Deceuninck has so far dominated the monuments and, with Liège-Bastogne-Liège to come soon, Lance Armstrong believes the World Champion can contest for the win against Tadej Pogacar.
“It is not a perfect race for him, but the man we saw win Paris-Roubaix today can certainly win Liège-Bastogne-Liège,” Armstrong said in The Move podcast. “Last week, in the Tour of Flanders, he had such a big gap that he himself thought or his team leader said: just switch back a notch, next week is Roubaix. If he has also ridden somewhat on reserve today, it is possible.”
Not likely however, but regardless of that, the World Champion won in Roubaix with a gap of exactly three minutes over his own teammate Jasper Philipsen. One of the largest gaps in the history of the 'Hell of the North', a classic that in itself traditionally feautures large gaps. Van der Poel attacked with 59 kilometers to go and had great legs, great luck and teammates behind to cover attacks. It was a win as convincing as Pogacar's at Strade Bianche.
Without Remco Evenepoel and with Primoz Roglic uncertain to race Liège, van der Poel - who has raced only race five days this season - will prolong his season into the Ardennes classics - and may even be Pogacar's biggest rival. He will try to seek a result in one of the two monuments which he hasn't won yet, and the race's long distance will be something that favour him.
Read also
Just go away LA ! He can't in LBL...it's a climbers race and MVP is to big for this one. He'll challenge Amstel as he has won it before but NO WAY he wins LBL !
How old MDVD again? I am unsure of atheletes' age these days🤔.
MvdP could win classics he may think are off that table for himself... Last year he packed in after Roubaix but this I think he's doing Amstel or LBL which should be wholly interesting!
I’m pretty sure he’s planning both still but agree with you, he can win but so can others, he doesn’t like to give the impression but he does what he can to achieve. For me WVA is capable of winning a GT but has the same reticence to trying. Obviously he’d have to more or less abandon other goals, train specifically like JV would and be able to count a the rest of the team as domestiques including Sepp, Jonas but it should be possible. They’re both still in their 20’s and show no/little sign of fatigue or loss of motivation, who knows how their priorities might develop after a few more years of collecting, in the end there will only few meaningful challenges left for them.
C’mon Lance, say something MEANINGFUL, you have plenty of money in your mouth. For sure it’ll be far more exciting for those who can’t just enjoy the beauty of watching « perfection » and need constant external stimulation. Discussion points, he did show a short weakness during P-R and in some other races going well. Only 5 races? Why do all cycling commentators forget that HIS season basically starts when everyone else (even WVA this time) stops, unless you want to argue that he’s a 2 season per year rider? He will be coming to the end of this « peak of season » TP is arriving at the beginning of his, crossing trajectories. The distance suits him but it doesn’t bother TP either, the climbs don’t suit him and any strategy that succeeds in wearing him out with those give him very little chance against TP who has no problem with any amount of hard climbing. He’ll be far more dependant on his team saving him energy, so lucky Vermeersch (and actually the whole team) seems to be in top form now, they need it against the abilities of UAE in TP is disciplined enough to let his team be efficient. I would say it could be amazing but considering all that’s happened already this season just crashwise, I’m no longer getting excited for anything further out than the next race. We’ll see his remaining form better during Amstel, the best possible attempt the Dutch could make to emulate LBL, twice as many hills but only half as high ;-)
Just in
Play for FREE! Fantasy Tour of Flanders
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- You are completely wrongvappaxbipmv05-04-2025
- Tadej has a little more chance. It will be an exciting race and the most important thing is that no one gets hurt.
maria2024202405-04-2025 - Whatever happens tomorrow... it'll be a hell of a raceslappers6605-04-2025
- Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".maria2024202405-04-2025
- Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025