OPINION: Did Mathieu van der Poel make a crucial mistake at the Tour of Flanders?
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel arrived this past Sunday at the Tour of Flanders in high spirits. Last year he had won the Ronde-Roubaix double and in this year's Milano-Sanremo he defeated Tadej Pogacar.
However, did he make a strategic error in yesterday's Tour of Flanders?
Potentially, Van der Poel was thinking about what he did in San Remo in the last two years than what happened in Flanders in 2023, when Pogi also managed to leave him in the Kwaremont.
Yesterday Mathieu ran as if he were Pogacar. He did the same as him. His team relieved in the same way as UAE. He even attacked on some climbs. And, of course, with the accumulation of efforts in hill after hill came the defeat at the end: he ran out of strength and Tadej, more accustomed to climbing in big mountain stages with large slopes, imposed his strength.
I think Mathieu should have played tactically with him. I think he shouldn't have given him any relays. And, I think he should have waited until the end and taken advantage of Mads Pedersen and Wout van Aert so that the Slovenian would have had to eat all the attacks.
Yes, maybe Pogacar would have won that way too, but he would have been squeezed to the maximum. Maybe that way he would have arrived at the last climb with a little less advantage. We'll never know.
Maybe Pedersen would have won the sprint, and you have to take everything into account. But I personally would rather take a chance on the Dane than the Slovenian.
Eddy Merckx won 'only' 2 Tour of Flanders in his career. because his rivals were allied against him and they were suffocating him;
Maybe Van der Poel needs to think about doing that, find himself and ally for the classics against the Slovenian. Maybe one year he will lose in a sprint with a Pedersen or a Van Aert as we said before, but he certainly cannot beat Pogacar on the climbs.
It was seen in 2023 and it was seen yesterday...
I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.
Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes risk
The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.
That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.
Easy to say, but when you know you were not in the best of form and you don’t know how it’ll be on the day, the only way you can find out what’s possible is by testing what you can do what you can. The fact that he was “only” as good as MP and WVA makes the discussion pretty pointless, all unbiased people are interested in is who is the better when both are in top shape. I for one wouldn’t want to go back to the days of unhealthy gang rivalries such as the DV brothers against Merckx which could devolve into dirty tricks, quite happy everyone now tries to win in his own way.
I disagree, the only issue yesterday was Tadej was stronger, he softened them on every berg after the first loop then burned them hard up the Oude Kwaremont/Paterberg. As Adam Blyth suggested in commentary there is NOBODY better at these 4 or 5 minute efforts on these hills. Protract that to next weekend those 4 or 5 minute efforts could be the difference. Yesterday however, MVDP, WVA and Mads left everything on those roads, Tadej was stronger that simple.
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