"Stick to grand tours please" - Mathieu van der Poel has cheeky request for Tadej Pogacar after Tour of Flanders

After a thrilling battle at the Tour of Flanders saw Tadej Pogacar ride to a memorable victory ahead of Mathieu van der Poel, the duo shared a light-hearted joke between them on Instagram.

Whilst the rivalry the pair have on the bike is clear to see, it seems like there is no shortage of mutual respect between two of the biggest names in the peloton today. As van der Poel took to his Instagram to show off a series of pictures from Sunday's race, captioned "nothing compares to the Tour of Flanders".

Pogacar responded with a simple message, "respect" and van der Poel clearly not letting the fact he couldn't achieve the win in Flanders get him down, replied with a request for the Slovenian. " Stick to grand tours please," said the Dutchman and we'd like to imagine he had a cheeky smile on his face whilst he typed it.