"Without that crash, he would have stayed in the race" - Adrie van der Poel sees clear reason for Tadej Pogacar beating his son at Tour of Flanders 2025
Cycling
Once again, Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar gave an incredibly exciting spectacle for the fans as they went head to head at the 2025 Tour of Flanders on Sunday afternoon. This time, it was the Slovenian world champion who emerged victorious, although according to Adrie van der Poel, father of the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader, there may be a slight taint to that win.
The reason for this belief? The fact that Van der Poel was caught up in a crash at around 126km to go. Although the Dutchman was ultimately able to get back on bike and get back into the mix, following almost all of Pogacar's attacks for the remainder of the race, Adrie believes that one last kick his son needed on the final ascent of the Oude Kwaremont might have been taken in his chase back on.
"Crashes are often underestimated," Van der Poel senior explains in a post-race interview with VTM Nieuws. "You're still hitting the ground at sixty kilometres per hour. I'm convinced that without that crash, he would have stayed in the race. That fall had a big effect."
In the end, Van der Poel had to settle for 3rd place at the line, losing out in the sprint for 2nd behind the runaway Pogacar to Mads Pedersen. "The best riders in the race finish first and third," Adrie van der Poel assesses. "Mads Pedersen, who came second, played it smart, and he’s also definitely faster. The wind also played a major role in how the race unfolded."
Ultimately though, given they can look to the crash as a potential reason for the defeat, camp Van der Poel aren't too dissuaded in their quest for Paris-Roubaix glory next weekend. "It doesn’t really say much about Paris-Roubaix next week, because everyone essentially starts from scratch. But it’s clear that Pogacar is the top favourite. The weather will be good, it will be dry, and he can handle the corners well. Plus, he has a solid team behind him," he concludes. "Riding on cobblestones is just like climbing a mountain to me. When there's nothing left in your legs, you’re not going anywhere."
Read also
Tadej Pogacar wins the 2025 Tour of Flanders in style!
— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) April 6, 2025
He joins Merckx as the only multiple Tours de France + multiple Rondes van Vlaanderen winner
Pogacar is the 7th rider to win De Ronde in the WC jersey
One half of the RVV + Roubaix double is in the books#RVV25 #RVVmen pic.twitter.com/DRy8lWMajF
Meaning, if dad was asked before he knew of the top secret* illness he wouldn’t have been able to integrate it into his “analysis”. * knowing how he likes talking, I expect it was kept secret even from him so as not to give things away.
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- Apart from a few outliers, in athletics, premature developers who held age group records didn’t get very far later and most athletes who became world stars never had early age records, I’d be surprised if in cycling it was any different.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- You can enjoy it by all means but will you also take responsibility for the consequences of encouraging it through that? Because we all pay the price of the way it affects people, moods, behaviour, illness, violence, crime, social degeneration, etc, no real good comes of it or what do you feel there is to gain from it other than experiencing a momentary emotional high some might not be able to achieve any other way?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- There's no reason we can't live in the real world while enjoying the doped up sport.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Tadej definitely wasn't terribly out of the ordinary as a junior. Just goes to show what great coaching and a proper "supplement" regiment can turn someone into.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Nice one. Not 100% officially a placebo but in my early days of group training in Mallorca I and another guy were reputed to ride without food (and once I paid the price for it having to be pushed back to base). On one particularly long outing things started getting difficult and the other guy mentioned he could really do with something to eat, one of the jokers offered him a home-wrapped snack, the latest nutritional supplement on the market and he started flying, showing and boasting all the way home how good he was feeling. At dinner, in front of 40 or so of his mates it was then revealed it had simply been a premeditated prank with a cheap doggy biscuit. Don’t know if anyone later ever considered experimenting with dogfood doping, was just happy not to have been selected as the victim.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Veganpotter, I’d take that as a compliment, like not knowing how to manufacture a bomb :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Most of us really overlook the reality of what happens physically when a bike tire goes over cobbles, we are too focused on experience, feeling and intuition to actually look at what should be a microscopic slow-motion analysis. I think it would help many to better imagine what is happening by comparing the situation to differing boat types advancing on wavy waters. You start with typical boats and play around with wave height and amplitude and then you progress onto more advanced designs, motorboats, catamarans, hovercraft, jetskis, gliders on different types of waves. Nce you can eliminate most of the wave and just skim the tops, the wave topography reduces to something minimal, this is the grail of bike design for cobbles, tough because no cobbled sector has exactly the same pattern. Does anyone know if wheel size is UCI regulated or is there a margin?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Alsene, I tend to agree but it’s incredibly complicated to calculate who has what advantage in which particular situation as the variables are largely interrelated. As you note, the rolling resistance alone is affected by numerous criteria, all things equal it is easy to change one variable to determine whether the heavier or lighter rider has an advantage, however, when EVERY rider is free to play with ALL variables (tire pressure, bike stiffness, wheel seperation and dozens more), many of the advantages/disadvantages melt into a smaller overall a/d much harder to determine when there is not an enormous weight difference (we have riders from mid 50 - mid 90kg but most are much closer together). In the meantime each team has optimised the set-up for each rider so differences are nowhere near what they used to be 30-40 years ago but obviously there is and always will be some but without highly advanced scientific research (which no-one is likely to provide for free and investing teams will keep for themselves) I feel there is now little point in people like us trying to make any factor or point the determining one, none will ever outweigh the gains from drafting and strategy :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Firstly, it’s not them, it’s their doctors and consultants and people contacting them trying to sell their wares. Secondly, now that there’s money in the sport, they can afford it, and peddlers see lucrative opportunities to separate them from their earnings, not very complicated to follow, in fact, wasn’t the whole modern thing started by someone having access to an oversized sponsor budget as there was a good marketing alignment of nationalistic and feelgood stories?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Yeah, let’s just discuss important matters while the world goes to bits ;-) Enjoy your entertainment but stay responsible!Mistermaumau12-04-2025