Livigno hosts Mathieu van der Poel before Tour de France assault
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel is getting ready for his second Tour de France, with a different preparation then 2021. Whilst last year he rode the Tour de Suisse in anticipation for the Grand Boucle, this year he's focused on recovering from the Giro d'Italia and a stint in Livigno to enter the French race in top form.
Whilst he entered the race on his best legs last year, taking the stage win and yellow jersey atop the Mur de Bretagne on the second stage, this year van der Poel is likely to have a slower approach into the race. He's currently in an altitude training camp in Livigno, mixing Mountain Biking with road riding, and benefiting from the effects of altitude ahead of the race. He will be chasing stages, alongside helping Jasper Philipsen in the bunch sprints.
The fifth stage should provide the Dutchman with his first opportunity to strike in the race as the riders will head into the cobbles of northern France. The following day in Longwy, aswell as the eighth stage into Lausanne should be ideal finales for the Alpecin-Fenix rider, who made a very successful return to racing this sprint with wins at Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour des Flandres.
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- Most of these have nothing to do with rider safety or are completely unachievablevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Depends on how fast the Cipressa would be beforehand and in what condition Philipsen would bevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- 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
- I wonder what would happen if Pogacar attacked on the Cipressa instead of the Poggio in San Remo? Would MvdPoel still be able to follow?Ride197423-12-2024