Top cyclocrossers are often not taken seriously because of phenomenon Mathieu van der Poel: "Are we going to make losers of the opposition on road too?"

Thibau Nys joined the road peloton deep into the Classics campaign, but still managed to secure some nice results. However he doesn't come even close to Mathieu van der Poel, his rival from cyclocross. Among all the stunning performances of this spring, he'd like to highlight his sprint at Milano-Sanremo.

In José De Cauwer's column in Het Nieuwsblad, Nys admires Van der Poel's ability to finish off races with a powerful sprint. "But if you're talking about a killer at the finish, José, then the toughest one is Mathieu van der Poel, right? What he did in Sanremo this year, really unseen. I thought that sprint afterwards was completely underexposed."

Nys explains why: "You have Pogacar who first deliberately drops down to - à la Kwiatkowski in 2017 - come up from behind at speed. But what does Van der Poel do? He swerves to the left and he starts sprinting first, which makes Pogacar's approach suddenly hopeless. He beats Pogacar and Ganna by using their strategy against them. I thought that was incredibly well done. I won't say: that's how I would have done it, but that's how I would really like to do it, haha."

Afterwards, the topic shifts to cyclocross where Van der Poel dominates arguably even more than on road. But we shouldn't be disrespectful towards the likes of Lars van der Haar, Eli Iserbyt or Joris Nieuwenhuis who arrive behind the phenomenal Dutchman. In any other era, they would've been the great champions themselves, Nys argues.

"You know what I think is cool? Mathieu has also cleaned up everything on the road in the past two years. Anyone who is not involved in cyclo-cross can easily be disparaging about Lars van der Haar, Eli Iserbyt or Joris Nieuwenhuis. They are all top cyclo-crossers, but compared to Mathieu it is easy to speak disparagingly about them."

"But the summary of the past two years on the road - from Sanremo to the Tour and Roubaix to the World Championship - is that Mathieu also sweeps everything and everyone together there. Are we going to make losers of the opposition there too?"