𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑨 𝑹𝑰𝑫𝑬 𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑨 𝑻𝑬𝑨𝑴 🤯 Jan Tratnik outsprints Nils Politt to the win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2024 on opening weekend! Wout Van Aert also won the bunch sprint to take third for Visma Lease-a-bike! #OHN24
“Luckily, we’ve got Mathieu van der Poel to come and play" - Adam Blythe can't see Team Visma | Lease a Bike's dominance lasting all spring
CyclingTuesday, 27 February 2024 at 10:50
Starting the 2024 season similarly to how they ended 2023, Team Visma | Lease a Bike were the dominant force in the peloton at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, seemingly always in control and eventually taking two steps on the podium through Jan Tratnik and Wout van Aert.
With Christophe Laporte coming home in 5th, it was actually three Team Visma | Lease a Bike riders in the top-5. “Luckily, we’ve got Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck ed.) to come and play," reflected ex-pro turned Eurosport pundit, Adam Blythe in his post-race analysis for the channel.
“The dominance of that Visma team - it’s not just Wout van Aert - there’s not just one rider at Visma - they’re all capable of winning it in such different ways, and that’s what makes them almost impossible to beat," Blythe continues, referencing the fact that whilst all eyes had been on van Aert, Laporte and Dylan van Baarle pre-race, it was Tratnik who prevailed. "I’d be really interested to see what it was like if Van der Poel was in that situation.”
Blythe's Eurosport colleague, Dan Lloyd however, wasn't quite as enthusiastic. “We have to remind ourselves that they didn’t win either of the cobbled monuments. They didn’t win a single monument last year," Lloyd recalls. "We thought they were going to, because they’d won every single one-day race on the cobbles before the bigger ones, but they didn’t quite perform on the day. I wonder whether they’re coming in not as hot as they did last year, because Van Aert didn’t look at the top of his game. But that’s not a worry. The bigger races are six weeks away.”
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- I think this was because there were junior women in the race. If a race has junior women am pretty sure it has to be less than 45 minutes. I believe a rule is coming in for next season that will fine organisers that don't put on a junior women's race a fine equivalent to the prize money. So fingers crossed we should see more longer elite and junior women's races from next season.NorrisHippocampe18-11-2024
- Of course he CAN. Big salary in cycling is not when you win but when they talk about you (and your team / sponsors). For every news about Jonas, MVdP or Wout there are 10 times more(!) news about Pidcock (like everyday for last 2 months?). Since cycling is advertising sport not competitive sport (in terms of from money comes from) Pidcock is winner and GOAT - change my mind. ;-)averagecyclist18-11-2024
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024 - So he read the comments here probably :-)DareDevil17-11-2024
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024