Mathieu van der Poel ready for Flanders battle with Tadej Pogacar: "I will absolutely have to be in shape to beat him"
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar will be at the Tour of Flanders as equal favourites to victory, however today the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider has punched the table once again to collect a second consecutive victory at the E3 Saxo Classic with convincing fashion.
However, it wasn't one that came in easily. "At the beginning, I was involved in an incident, and some teams felt it was necessary to take advantage of it. I want to thank all my teammates for their excellent work. I was very motivated and felt a bit obligated to finish". Alpecin did a lot of work, and it turned out to all be worth it. By the time the race's important attacks came about the Dutchman looked isolated, but he didn't need the support either.
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On the Taaienberg, still with 80 kilometers to go, Mads Pedersen's attack split the race to bits, leaving team tactics out of the equation. "In recent years, the decision has never really been made on the Taaienberg, but we immediately had a good gap, with Ganna and an impressive Pedersen. I knew right away that we would go far with this group." Filippo Ganna also followed, and five riders at the head of the race collaborated well enough to leave everyone else far behind. Then when it came to the moment of winning the race, it only required one attack to make the difference.
"I had then planned to make a selection on the Oude Kwaremont, so as not to end up with five riders. But I know, since last year, how difficult it is," he said - however, he did seem to drop his rivals with ease. "The wind was against us again towards the finish. It was very long, but the reward is great. I'm very happy to have won". A win with over a minute over Mads Pedersen means his form is as high as it could pretty much, and ready to fight for another victory in De Ronde.
"I always try to be in the best shape for the Tour of Flanders. There will be a certain Tadej. I will absolutely have to be in shape to beat him, but I think I did everything to be in the best possible position at the start," van der Poel believes. "Now we have to wait until next week".
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Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) WINS E3 Saxo Classic for the 2nd year in a row, after a devastating 40 km solo attack! 👏🇳🇱 Only one rider could have beaten Mathieu today and he skipped the race. See ya in Ronde!#E3SaxoClassic pic.twitter.com/tR6W2Ei4M0
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) March 28, 2025
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- 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
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025