"We can't do more than our best" - Ilan Van Wilder urges to stop unrealistic comparisons to UAE's star-filled mountain armada
CyclingFriday, 04 July 2025 at 07:00
For a second year in a row, Remco Evenepoel enters the Tour de France as an underdog, a challenger who should stand up to the reign of Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. But unlike those two, he cannot count on a super team of domestiques. Even more so now, since it became clear that Mikel Landa won't be able to participate.
That puts extra weight on the shoulders of Ilan Van Wilder who should be the last helper of Evenepoel in key moments. Even more important role than last year. "But actually, not much will change for me," Van Wilder assures Wieler Revue about his role.
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Eighth overall at Tour de Suisse last month, the 25-year-old Belgian certainly seems to be in a good shape heading to Tour. "I will do my utmost to support my leader as long as possible during the difficult days. I do think that I am a little better than last year. That I have taken a step further. I hope to show that in the Tour."
Is he worried about the general strength of UAE and Visma? "No, I'm not thinking about that. First of all, I hope to stay safe, especially in the first week," is his answer to that. "It goes without saying that positioning for those hectic finals is not for me. That is not my job either. I have to get through the first part safely, so that I can do my job afterwards."
Last year, a lot of critique fell on the head of Evenepoel's Soudal - Quick-Step teammates for leaving their leader vulnerable. Those voices were heard again at the Criterium du Dauphiné where the Olympic champion fell short of his opponents. "It's a bit of the same story with the criticism, but I'm much less concerned about it," says Van Wilder.
"It's very easy to always compare us with teams that use captains as domestiques, like UAE. In my opinion, that's not a realistic comparison." Van Wilder then stands up for his teammates. "I know that those guys who are there are just going to give one hundred percent for the leaders. We can't do more than our best. I am convinced that we are all at a high level."
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- Double standards? As far as I know you never signed up for The Enhanced Games.Mistermaumau30-07-2025
- OO the right time?? Maybe for those forking out, otherwise, had he been born 2-3 years earlier, his performance might have changed TV coverage decisions, that would have been the right time. Not much discussion of Sky/Ineos’s role in the rise and “fall” of the scene, nor of the role the end of the original Tour of Britain might have had on TV decisions. Nice coincidence the first new version started in Kelso, in fact, together with OO, Healy and the recent World champs, it seems its the outposts holding the fortress these days. If I would live there, I’d rather pay Ryanair or a Ferry to go see a few races/stages per year and enjoy a nice experience than some scam TV subscription to wear out a sofa. Surely someone can arrange a deal with the French like for their electricity? Maybe the EU would even finance a multilingual sports channel version of ARTE to mostly promote niche sports, coz as we cycling fans often forget, cycling is still treated far better than many other sports.Mistermaumau30-07-2025
- Maybe that is part of their strategy, get him to retire ;-) Anyway, we have Sky and Brailsford to thank for teams looking at every possible detail, and speaking of them, unfortunately now authorities are looking at every detail at Sky and it seems to be falling in more and more but like with Christian Horner in F1 for other reasons, some will cling on until the bitter endMistermaumau30-07-2025
- Because you are of the opinion Covid goes on strike at 40 Celsius? There was an extremely detailed study correlating Covid frequency to outdoor temp (without factoring in a/c that riders might resort to which increases risk even higher. I’ll only send you the title to check if you ask but you are just as much at risk around 40 than 5, safest temperatures seemed to be 17-24, worst 10-17. The range 24-40 is constantly high risk, at least as much as 5 and higher than anything below 5.Mistermaumau30-07-2025
- This is a more balanced take than most. It really is interesting listening to voices in the media exult in Pog's greatness, call him GOAT, and all that, then blame the results on Visma's tactics. Visma did the right thing by putting as much pressure on Pog as possible, but in the end Jonas had a couple of off days and Pog didn't. That's actually been the story of each of their TDF battles - Pog cracked on Granon, Hautacam, and Col de la Loze in Jonas's victories, Jonas cracked on Hautacam and the TT this year. Tadej's best is better than Jonas's best, but only slightly. If next year Jonas has all good days and Pog has one or two bad days, Jonas will win.MidnightRider30-07-2025
- Vollering is a cry baby, I posted on the other story related to this that it is an idiotic comment for Delcourt to make.mij30-07-2025
- Nobody cares what you think anymore, Johan. Go have your midlife crisis somewhere else.
santiagobenites30-07-2025 - I'll buck the trend, never been a fan of the ITV coverage always preferred Eurosport then GCN and now TNT. Make no bones about it this is all about money, Warner Bros and Discovery shafted Eurosport UK & GCN and what it was doing superbly well to tuck it behind the TNT paywall, of course the kick in the teeth was adverts back during the Tour. It's not even about cycling, it, Moto Gp and most of the other sports are simply there to subsidise football so they can continue to pay these over priced prima donnas vast salaries. Minority sports will always suffer at the hands of commercialism and sodding football, can you tell I hate football??. All that will happen is that more and more people will go down the Firestick VPN route that puts nothing into cycling pockets. the sport needs the commercialism to survive but not at the cost of expanding coverageslappers6630-07-2025
- Depends on Almeida classification: if Joao is consistently higher to Ayuso, then a lot of bees will sting Juancito (or some strange Covid that lives in summer at 40°C will infect him, like happened in Tour 2024)
maria2024202430-07-2025 - No Ayuso won't but I hope that Joao doesslappers6630-07-2025