"They absolutely do not deserve such backlash" - Adrie van der Poel believes Belgian fans put too much pressure on their stars
Cycling
By any objective metrics, Remco Evenepoel and Wout Van Aert both represent the absolute pinnacle of the world of cycling of our generation. And yet, the general perception of the two stars seems to be quite underappreciated back home in Belgium.
Or at least that is the feeling of Adrie van der Poel, father of Mathieu and David, who has close ties to the country even though he lives in the Netherlands.
"Evenepoel and Van Aert have a palmares that most riders can only dream of," Adrie states in his analysis for Wieler Revue.
He notices that the metrics through which are both riders viewed have an unreasonably high standard which, if unmet, immediately triggers an avalanche of criticism. "If they are off for two weeks, people start looking for all sorts of things they did wrong."
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Punished for greatness
That doesn't sit right with the Dutch ex-professional. He believes that the performances of these high-profile athletes are taken for granted far too quickly.
And when the expectations don't match reality, it makes the fallback even harder. "They absolutely do not deserve that," he adds resolutely.
Mathieu van der Poel is seemingly under much less pressure than his Belgian opponents
Secret weapon: Dutch passport
On contrary, Adrie's son Mathieu appears to be racing without a sign of pressure from the Dutch audience. Even though the expectations for seven-time cyclocross world champion are not the tiniest bit smaller.
"I think it helps that he has a Dutch passport," Adrie assesses. Born in Belgian Kapellen, Mathieu could've consider representing Belgian colours, or even race under French from his mother's side, but ultimately there was never a sliver of doubt that Van der Poel family name would remain connected to the Netherlands.
Wout Van Aert loses a sprint to Neilson Powless
The sport is too complex
Coming back to the racing side, Adrie is quite critical of those who believe they can crack the riders' tactical plans from the sidelines. According to him, what outsiders underestimate the most is the enormous complexity of a major cycling tour. Critics often forget that the race is not a straightforward sporting event.
"It's not football," he explains emphatically. "It's not A against B. There are twenty teams, all with their own interests. Every team has its goal," he adds. One team may be racing for overall victory, others for stage win, and another for sub-classifications. All of this contributes to sometimes chaotic action.
That tactical maneuvering also comes clearly to the fore when he looks at the different choices of the top riders. For instance, he compares the sprinting work of the absent Van Aert with that of Mathieu. "Wout also sprints in mass sprints and intermediate sprints," Adrie analyzes. "Mathieu doesn't do that anymore."
According to him, that is a very conscious decision to conserve energy in the modern, cutthroat peloton. "He thinks: why would I take a risk against guys like Milan? I’d rather save energy to try and win my own stage two days later."
Nevertheless, Adrie greatly enjoys the sheer class of the competition that does take such risks or dominates the general classification. He is particularly loud and clear about Tadej Pogacar: "What he does is incredibly impressive."
Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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