Tadej Pogacar has reached the Tour of Flanders safe and in form. With two days left for the big goal of his spring, he talks about his rivals Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel in a press conference, and hints at how he may race in order to take the win.
"Van der Poel has the best acceleration. I experienced it up close last year in the Tour of Flanders and two weeks ago in Milan-Sanremo," Pogacar said in an interview with Het Laatste Nieuws. "If Mathieu is a ten, then I'm only a six or so. It is almost unbeatable if it can play out its acceleration, because it accelerates like the best. It is also somewhat relative. At some point sprinters will be faster than Mathieu and gain the upper hand purely on speed. And when it comes to accelerating from the saddle on climbs like in the Tour of Flanders, I think Van Aert is the best."
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Pogacar has won the Clásica Jaén Paraiso Interior, Vuelta a Andalucia and Paris-Nice, all of them with unrivaled dominance. In the spring classics the scenario isn't the same however as the terrain favours other riders. That was the case in Milano-Sanremo where he finished fourth as van der Poel soared to the win. Last year the Slovenian rode to fourth in Flanders, but that was after attacking the race multiple times and arriving at the final straight alone with the Dutchman.
The strategy this year may be the same: “I try to tire them out along the way in the hope that their acceleration will blunt," he shares. "I think I'm good at versatility, or maybe take endurance. I like hard competitions. If you're trying to win, you push the limits. You push yourself and the bike, sometimes you make mistakes. It is an art to learn from that. If you do that well, you will go faster than the rest next time."
Pogacar leads UAE Team Emirates in pursuit of an ambitions goal. Van der Poel will not be his only rival, as Jumbo-Visma and particularly Wout van Aert have been performing recently. The Dutch team has won all five main cobbled classics so far this spring and aim for more.
"I think Van Aert is smarter in his way of racing. More calculated. You know: you either have it or you don't. You can get better at it with experience, but only up to a certain point," Pogacar concluded.
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