Van der Poel winning Sanremo "in the most blazing, iconic way possible" is bad new for Wout van Aert, according to Jan Bakelants
Cycling
Wout van Aert is training for the cobbled classics in a very different way than his two main rival, but according to former pro Jan Bakelants he will not have been happy after seeing both Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar flying at Milano-Sanremo.
"He can't have been happy about this at all. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes right now. The registered mail landed hard on the mat, there in Tenerife (where van Aert is currently training, ed.)," Bakelants said to Het Laatste Nieuws.
"And he had to take note of it. Okay, if you don’t ride, you can’t change anything. But after this performance I can imagine that a return to competition against these riders, Friday in the E3 Saxo Classic, is not a nice idea".
It must be said that van Aert's plan was never to race Milano-Sanremo, and he has made the conscious decision to skip also Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico in order to favour a training-based approach to the cobbled monuments. He will return to racing at the E3 Saxo Classic, in hopes of then having his best level just in time for the big races of his spring.
“Of course, the counters go back to zero every race. And Wout is also mentally strong enough to deal with this. I don’t think he is that sensitive to all the reading material on social media and in the newspapers, he doesn’t let it get to his head," Bakelants argues.
"But he will realize very well what Van der Poel has achieved: not only winning a Monument, but also in the most blazing, iconic way possible. By muzzling the best rider in the world".
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santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
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- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025