UAE lineup for Tour of Flanders corrected - Tadej Pogacar can count on Florian Vermeersch!
CyclingWednesday, 02 April 2025 at 00:30
UAE Team Emirates - XRG released not one, but two lineups for the Tour of Flanders scheduled this Sunday. The culprit is ninja Florian Vermeersch who disguised himself as Rui Oliveira and snuck into the announcement under false idendity...
The media team of race favourite Tadej Pogacar swiftly picked up on the obvious mistake and promptly posted a second selection, this time including the 26-year-old Belgian. Vermeersch will be an important piece in the puzzle which should come together as a second Flanders victory of the current world champion.
Vermeersch missed the whole spring last year with an injury, but in 2025 he is clearly in a good shape as evident from his 4th place at GP de Denain, 6th at Bredene Koksijde and solid showings at the cobbled classics of last week (24th at E3 Saxo Classic and 26th at Gent Wevelgem).
His absence would've been a heavy blow for Pogacar's ambition as the Slovenian will need all the manpower he can get to take on Mathieu van der Poel and get revenge for Milano-Sanremo. The Dutchman's squad may not be as star-filled, but their ability to execute orders in favor of their leader is the more clinical. And it includes a Vermeersch (Gianni) too.
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- Did the person who wrote this article catch any of last season and what happened? Cut the guy some slack and stop feeding of someone else’s hard times, the above article is pretty redundant.Jezla12-05-2025
- Hey, all great and deserving of respect but let’s not look at things too pinkly. He’s only just above Marc Hirschi in the UCI rankings. He’s had the potential to do this for the last 7-8 years, it’s just all come together at once, having his moment. Maybe he went on a secret HA camp :-) Seriously though, he’s NEVER said he doesn’t believe in it (challenge: find me that quote), he said he hates it in words that would get an F1 driver punished, and for the same reasons that his fellow countryman Jonas gets crucified for, being away from family (though given team budgets, there is an obvious solution to that). Besides, not very professional of media and pundits to linger on past out of date sayings, he’s more or less changed his mind in the meantime and is no longer categoric about refusing to try.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- I don’t think that pays off in cycling, you never know when your next problem will happen, injury, illness, crash, and using so much time to prepare for a big goal risks being very disappointing in a short career.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- I love Remco but this year is a write-off. The smart move would be to treat it all as preparation for next season.Renz12-05-2025
- What you forget about hunting is that time is on the side of the hunter. You’d be a fool to underestimate rivals who haven’t peaked and I doubt you’ll hear any riders including TP or JV brushing him off like you’re trying. He’s done one GT against them, his first, what were you expecting? Still way ahead of any other contenders and that as a first-timer.Mistermaumau12-05-2025
- Its appears that way. Repeated crashes take a toll on the bodyabstractengineer11-05-2025
- He cannot hunt down something that he has never been close to in GTsabstractengineer11-05-2025
- He's just not the same after the crash at La Vuelta. I hope the knee injury does not "Chris Froome" his career.
KerisVroom11-05-2025 - Well, I didn’t hear any strict instructions from management so why shouldn’t it be like Visma’s infamous Vuelta unless things heat up? Am sure they don’t regret sweeping the podium which was only possible because internal rivalry was at least as strong as external.Mistermaumau11-05-2025
- In principle, but he’ll always have that Planche des Belles Filles TdF loss in his mind nowadays so not sure he’ll be so keen on giving away anything anymoreif he doesn’t really have to. It’s a matter of weighing (dis)advantages and I’m not so sure the media obligations always outweigh the psychological effects that a win or domination bring, unless you’re bad at dealing with pressure which I doubt is the case with Primoz.Mistermaumau11-05-2025