Mathieu van der Poel is ready for Pogacar and Flanders - E3 Saxo Classic sees dominant win from Dutchman as Van Aert struggles
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel won Milano-Sanremo and today at the E3 Saxo Classic he showed the exact same level. The defending champion won the build-up race to Flanders with style, comfortably dropping his rivals and taking home a stellar solo win.
The race began with a large crash which involved or blocked many riders in the peloton and left a group of around 50 riders in front which accelerated the peloton. There were a few very dangerous riders in front and the gap to a peloton where Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and Filippo Ganna were grew to around 2 minutes even.
However at a certain point this began to come down, and it was closed as the riders entered the final 110 kilometers, the crucial part of the race. Aimé de Gendt and Casper Pedersen launched a well-timed move, as soon they would be joined by the three riders who made a move on the Taaienberg. After INEOS Grenadiers pushed the pace hard, Mads Pedersen attacked and took Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna with him.
The five collaborated well until the Oude Kwaremont where van der Poel would launch a decisive attack, dropping his rivals. Pedersen and Ganna would chase individually, the duo behind trying to resist for a Top 5, whilst a group of 4 including Matteo Jorgenson were amongst the first that were coming from the peloton.
The race ended exactly as predicted for the final hour as van der Poel comfortably cruised to the finish, winning with over a minute of a gap over Pedersen in the rain, whilst Filippo Ganna was third.
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- Nice though you have to ask why they call it a wildcard as it’s always pretty obvious who will receive them.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Absolutely, we are inundated by articles (not only in cycling or sport but everywhere from stocks to weather to elections) from self-called or popularly regarded experts making calls without reasoning. They basically know little more than any other informed or interested party and base everything on odds. The fact that they never have to justify their wrong calls post event but continue to get to make calls should get some attention. It would be cool if someone tallied up and recorded their predictions for future reference.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Yes, I agree but you’re taking risks writing such long posts here ;-) In that sense, the Tourless Primoz discussion is also pretty pointless as he virtually won a Tour (nobody would have counted on Tadej doing what he did at the last moment at that time and I guess it was bad karma for Primoz for so ofren cutting things so fine). I think you over interpreted my original thesis, it was not for trying to explain his current state, it was to suggest there was already mental material pre-crashes that has helped worsen his state, when it rains it pours. I really do remember having the feeling in that past he was more focused on not letting MVDP get better than him than doing his own thing. The seed of doubt was already planted and it doesn’t take much for doubt to grow in all sorts of directions.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025