"Van der Poel played with fire a few times along the way" - Accumulation of small mistakes to be blamed for Mathieu van der Poel's defeat at Tour of Flanders

Mathieu van der Poel made few incredible recoveries during the 2025 Tour of Flanders. However all of his previous mistakes that Sunday caught up to him with 18 kilometers to go when Oude Kwaremont arose in front of the riders and Tadej Pogacar disappeared over the horizon while the Dutchman seemed to have hit his ceiling.

Van der Poel was gloriously defeated on the last passage of the Oude Kwaremont, but analyst Marc Sergeant thinks that this was not the big problem for the Dutchman. "It has gone wrong before," states the former manager of Lotto in his analysis in Het Nieuwsblad. "Twice something happens to Van der Poel that very rarely happens to him. First he is too far on the second time Oude Kwaremont, then again on the Stationsberg."

The former Belgian rider was irritated by the positioning of the defending champion. "He is always badly positioned, while he knows that he and Pogacar only have to keep an eye on one man. That is so atypical. Admittedly, he often fixes that in no time. On the Kwaremont even in an impressive way. The way he accelerated there, he must have ridden a few cobblestones out of the way."

These were mighty efforts by Van der Poel, but they did cost him quite a bit of energy. "Energy that he may well lack when Pogacar takes out Kwaremont again the last time. And also striking: you could immediately see that this gave Van der Poel a mental crack. The eagerness and playfulness that usually characterize him were suddenly far away." In the end, Van der Poel came third, a minute behind winner Pogacar and behind Mads Pedersen.

José De Cauwer also saw that Van der Poel occasionally made a mistake. However, the former team manager does see that in the end it didn't matter much. "Van der Poel played with fire a few times along the way," he says afterwards at Sporza. "Having to come from too far after that crash and the bike change. Are those excuses? No, those are not excuses, those are small mistakes or snapshots. But let's just say that Pogacar was the best."