Mathieu van der Poel has emerged a very popular winner of Amstel Gold Race in 2019 and tried to replicate that result yesterday in Limburg, but came up short of the podium after having finished in fourth place.
As likely the most feared pre-race favourite, van der Poel had pressure on his shoulders as many rivals would eye him, Alpecin quickly turned up the pace in the final sequence of climbs. INEOS took over and made the decisive split of 11 riders that went on to fight for the race: "It was a very difficult day, Amstel is one of the most difficult races there is. Racing started early again... The new loop was okay. The jostling and danger in the run-up to the Kruisberg has now been removed. The final now started a little earlier, on the Gulperberg," Van der Poel said after the race.
Despite some occasional collaboration, with the moves of Michal Kwiatkowski and Benoît Cosnefroy, disorganization started to be felt in the chasing group. With Tom Pidcock acting as a plug and several riders saving themselves for an attack in the finale, the chase was to no avail despite the Dutchman's best efforts in the closing kilometers to put in a final dig.
“Nevertheless, we worked well together behind that. With the INEOS Grenadiers overflow, I knew it was going to be difficult and it showed," he said. After Benoot sneaking off the group and taking third place, it was a battle for minor places behind as van der Poel successfully took the sprint for fourth. "That was very special back then [Amstel Gold Race 2019], but I don't think something like that will work anymore. This is just a really tough race for me, against the lightweights. I felt okay, but I wasn't good enough to respond to everything. So I had to make choices"
“This place on the calendar was not bad. After Paris-Roubaix you are really broken, that will not be the case now. I also noticed some decompression after my victory in De Ronde, I had really been looking forward to that. Tried to recharge for today and that was it. Hopefully next week I will be back 100%," he concluded.
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