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...
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.
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- Special effects on the spokes?Mistermaumau13-04-2025
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- So, in the end Martin got real time on the line and actually drop a place in the GC. the spirit of the 3km rule is to save riders that are afected by crashes or mechanicals when these events are not their fault. Some cases where the rider is to "blame" are, for pragmatical reasons, i guess, also covered by the rule. But when you are on the attack in a rolling terrain and you crash, alone, it doesn't make much sense to apply the rule, even if you are in the last km. It's completely different from the situation where there's a big crash in the bunch in the last kms and you get stuck behind fallen riders, for example.heinz13-04-2025
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