"That's the cancer of our current society" - Tadej Pogacar jumps to support Wout van Aert
Cycling
Wout van Aert continues to face mounting criticism in the Belgian media following his performance at Dwars door Vlaanderen. But just as Demi Vollering stepped in to support the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider on Wednesday, today it was Tadej Pogacar who came to his defence.
“I didn't see it, but I did hear what happened', Pogacar said. “That's how it goes in a race. They made a mistake and that can happen. Neilson was also just very strong. Wout makes a good impression on me and I think he will be fine for Flanders, which is his big goal. He always manages to find extra energy for the big races and I expect him on Sunday too.”
“There is a lot of pressure on us,” said the Slovenian star. “Someone like Wout doesn't ride many races, but when he does, they are big races and the pressure is on him. Then he has to perform. With three against one, it is of course also annoying, but on Sunday he won't think about that anymore.”
Pogacar, who rides for UAE Team Emirates–XRG, also addressed the tone of public criticism, particularly from online sources, and offered a firm opinion on the role of social media.
“Social media? That's the cancer of our current society,” said Pogacar. “You can spend the whole day on social media and there are certainly positive things about it, but the negative things stand out. It can ruin your day and that's really not worth it. You shouldn't give social media and the news – no offense to you guys – too much attention. That's the easiest thing to do.”
Vollering, who had spoken up for Van Aert the day before, admitted she too had initially found humour in Visma’s unexpected defeat, but her perspective changed upon watching the race again and hearing Van Aert’s emotional interview.
“I also had to laugh a little when I first heard that Visma lost while they were in the leading group with three,” Vollering wrote on Instagram. “But after I watched it back and heard the interview with Wout, I changed my mind. We must not forget that we are all human. We like a bit of drama, and we like underdog stories. Wout is also human. And he has been through a lot.”
“Everyone has an opinion about him. We all judge too soon, we tend to forget everything that happened to him. And we probably don't know half of it because we can't look into his head, or understand what it does to him mentally. That he says it was selfish that he didn't act the way he is, that hurt me. We forget so easily how much stress, doubt and all the crap that is thrown at him does to him.”
Exactly Tadej, the cancer of modern society. Full of good-for-nothing people who gain visibility and importance on social media mocking, humiliating (and worse things) to earn money. But it's the follower's fault, no followers, no "influencers".
my formative years in racing were in the 80s and 90s. back then the tone of the peloton was HARSH, aggressive, unfriendly and often mean. amateur racers just modeled what they saw from the pros, so many of the guys a raced with and against were outright a$$hole$, by choice. my great hope is that the amateur ranks now model the tone of kindness and support and compassion that we see in the pro peloton NOW. the greatest stars — tadej, wout, mathieu, demi, kasia, and on and on, never say an unkind word about their brothers and sisters in the peloton, and are often the first even in defeat to hug and congratulate the winner. these are better times in my opinion. maybe some fans miss the “get your hate on” tone of the older days. i do not.
When Roglic beat Geraint Thomas on the last day's TT at the Giro, I remember just how unbelievably emotional his team was. One guy, I forget who, German rider I think, was interviewed and was nearly speechless with a really drawn out "fuuuuuuuuuck it's incredible" comment. And then something even more amazing happened. Geraint Thomas came through the ranks of the Jumbo Visma riders and congratulated them all. True, honest, sincere, sportsmanlike, and celebratory of what had been achieved. Here he was, getting second, and he meant it. And cycling these days is like that, as you say - the way Pogacar hugged Matthews in Quebec, the way Matthews congratulated Pogacar in Montreal, on and on they honor and respect each other. It's pretty great.
i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)
That was one of the best interviews. Coming from the best guy in the world Pogi has so much class. Of course he wants to beat MVDP And sees him as the biggest rival. I kind of felt it was a set up to ask Pogi about Wout being a rival. If he was truly honest, he might have said Wout isn’t a threat at this point. Instead, he just laid out the facts and added some opinions that didn’t diminish the respect he ultimately has for Wout or any competitor for that matter even if they aren’t a threat. Pogi is a master at showing sportsmanship. When he loses to MVDP It’s not a big deal and he’s laughing and goofing around and all giddy as if he did win. He just truly loves racing more than he loves winning. Truly a delight to see him on the podium No matter what step he’s on.
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- Agreed. He was dropped hard on every other climb. Without the run up he might have not been in the final sprint. And why not try it? Kudos for him for trying to make the race rather than just following.mij06-04-2025
- To me it seemed like an attempt to get through the climb closer to the front, since his burst power was lacking. If he starts earlier he can take the hill slower and still not be too far behind by the top. It kept him in that group of 4, where he might have been dropped had they all stayed together to the bottom of the climb. Who knows, though. I’m just guessing.RidesHills06-04-2025
- No idea, there have been suggestions something is amiss, maybe he doesn’t have all his mind connected at some moments, I’d definitely do a thorough review of his consciousness under effort.Mistermaumau06-04-2025
- Pogacar and van der Poel have won the last 6 Monuments, and 11 of the last 13 Monuments. There’s never been domination like this by two riders, and we are in our third year of it. (Merckx and de Vlaeminck won a total of 30 Monuments between 1966 and 1979, but others were winning along the way, as well.)RidesHills06-04-2025
- Yes but what was the dumb effort by Van Aert to drop Pogacar, Vanderpoel and Pederson about.? Just showing face? If he had stayed on the wheels and not wasted energy, he might have got on the podium in the runners up sprint.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- What a loser.
santiagobenites06-04-2025 - I agree about the sprint or drilling it on the flat. Lighter rider versus heavier rider. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion (e.g the heavier riders momentum) and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- Definitely, he is a great rider, and this season might even be as good as last (in a perfect world, a few more Monuments, a Tour-Vuelta double, and the Worlds again), but he has to do this for years on end to compare to Merckx’s results from roughly 69 to 74. Yes, times have changed, yes competition is different, yes speeds are higher, and so on, but let’s let Pogacar be Pogacar and give him time. We can evaluate his career when he retires. Until then, let’s enjoy it while we have it.RidesHills06-04-2025
- Excellent work and show from all of them, glad to see van Aert got back to shape in time. Bring on P-RMistermaumau06-04-2025
- All this seems right but the problem is that two riders of differing weight going at the same speed will have different power and they will also have different power per weight yet are both (in theory, i.e. when trying their hardest) at their max,which means the lighter one is proportionally losing more to the wind (working harder to overcome), the heavier one proportionally losing more to rolling resistance and bounce. The extremely difficult calculations to know which of the 2-3 causes the bigger effect under what exact conditions is what makes it impossible to say who will benefit most in many situations when they aren’t different enough to make it obvious, i.e. a puny climber of 50kg vs a sprinter of 80kg on either the flat or a mountain.Mistermaumau06-04-2025