Visma DS blames himself for Dwars door Vlaanderen shocker: "It is my mistake and responsibility to anticipate Wout's cramps in order to win the race"
Cycling
Hell froze and Wout Van Aert lost the sprint for victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen to, checks notes, Neilson Powless. Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Grischa Niermann only blames himself for not anticipating such outcome by deploying different strategy.
The three riders in front made their own tactics. "And I didn’t overrule that," Niermann sighed afterwards at WielerFlits. "I am responsible for the tactics. Wout had the confidence to win the sprint, but in hindsight I should have made the decision that they had to attack one by one to get Powless off."
Visma had the race perfectly under control with three against one scenario, but didn't use their numbers in any way. "It was on a plate for us in the last kilometers. It can happen that he had cramps in the sprint. So it is my mistake and responsibility to anticipate that in order to win the race. I didn’t do that."
Was the team too keen to win with Van Aert? "Of course it would have been great if Wout had won and if the chasers weren’t so close behind, it wouldn’t have been a risk to attack. That would have been possible at the end, but we had confidence that Wout would win the sprint. Now it’s clear that you can see strange things after such a long final. Nine times out of ten Wout wins, but not this time. That’s no excuse."
"There is a lot of disappointment among us. They rode a perfect race until the last straight. But normally Wout wins that sprint. He had very good legs and also rode a great race. You don't think of this scenario. The easiest scenario to win is that someone rides to the finish alone. That's how we've done it in recent years. This was a big mistake."
If niermann this he can predict cramps, that would be helpful for a lot of people around the world. It was the standard strategy for Benoot and Jorgensen to attack and they should have
Exactly, a rider (or sprinter in athletics) can’t even tell themselves when it will happen until it does. Obviously if you have an idea that could happen, you should maybe envisage testing your theory with perhaps an small sharp attack well before race-end.
I also wasn’t too impressed by the final lead out, they’ve got to practice that, Wout had far too long to ride alone but then again it seemed as if the lead-outs had themselves run out of steam too early which is what makes me believe none of them could have won, Powfull looked totally fresh and in the end it was just a case of him being stronger than the others, not much you can do against that, just like you can’t outdo MVDP in the end when he’s in shape.
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- Yes, I get that but it wasn’t exactly a good comparison if you ask me, circumstances and competition were very different. Also crashing whilst staying up front is pretty different from crashing and being left behind.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Pidcock was riding at a hard enough pace until the sector where Pogacar made up something like 20 seconds in something like... 20 seconds. Pidcock was quite a bit ahead, and suddenly he wasn't. At that point, clearly he would get caught, so might as well get caught sooner and work together. That's just good cycling. (I think the point is, plenty of people win even after they've come down in a crash - Van der Poel crashed at the worlds and won, anyway, for example).RidesHills08-04-2025
- Great sprint, Ineos set him up at exactly the right time, they protected the corners through the turns, and he did the job he was supposed to do. Nice to see him win again.RidesHills08-04-2025
- When Vingo, Rogla, and Wout were all at the height of their powers, a sight to behold.mobk08-04-2025
- To quote the article: riders from Arkéa - B&B Hotels and a few others seized the moment to launch an attack, increasing the pace as Pogacar was briefly off the bike. Not coolmij08-04-2025
- I don’t think it was a matter of easing up. I think it was a matter of attacking. And MVDP said his team would respect similar situations. Perhaps not on the penultimate climb, but I believe they would. To accelerate is a jerk move.mij08-04-2025
- His basic attitude always has been (and we know age often reinforces inherent values), if I’m going down I’m going to try taking you with me.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I know it’s tradition and nice but to make the discussion more interesting, if an Arkea rider had driven up to tell Alpecin or UAE to ease off for Mozzato or Vauquelin having a P, would they have been as gentlemanly?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Exactly, that easily makes for a minute at the front. You don’t see Pog cracking often either (less often than MVDP even) but when he does it’s lights out and over too. This is completely normal and to be expected, at the level of competitiveness all these guys are they only crack once they’ve pushed beyond their manageable limit and there’s no coming back from that. When your rival forces you into the red to keep or catch up, it’s over, in that respect, well done to WVA who seems to be world champion in staying just outside the red for as long as he can.Mistermaumau08-04-2025