Information editor at Biking Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on on the higher echelons of our sport.
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As Mathieu van der Poel soloed his option to victory on the Tour of Flanders on Sunday, powering in the direction of Oudenaarde with victory in sight, the group of Dutch or Belgian followers in entrance of me within the fan zone on the Oude Kwaremont circled and accosted me and my pals for not clapping vociferously sufficient for the brand new champion.
Perhaps it was the grim climate or the actual fact we had been standing in the identical little bit of Belgian bathroom for 3 hours by this level, however none of us appeared notably enamoured by Van der Poel’s third win at De Ronde, his third in simply 5 editions, in actual fact. It was a critically spectacular experience given the whole lot, and probably Van der Poel’s finest victory, however it didn’t fill us with the joy we craved.
It’s tough to clarify this stage of indifference to a legend being topped in entrance of our eyes, and possibly it’s simply our cynicism, however in the end it felt like Van der Poel was at all times going to win on Sunday, and this inevitability felt a bit boring. The successful margin was solely simply over a minute ultimately, however it felt like there was a yawning chasm between the Dutchman and everybody else. A chasm which made the race really feel a bit boring ultimately, regardless of the epic climate.
Final 12 months, after we have been stood in precisely the identical spot doing precisely the identical factor, Tadej Pogačar’s victory occurred proper in entrance of our eyes, and felt totally different, presumably as a result of till the purpose he launched his successful assault, it nonetheless wasn’t fully clear that the Slovenian might win this Monument.
We already knew Van der Poel had the ability to win Flanders, however with Pogačar not current, and with Wout van Aert out with an damage sustained at Dwars door Vlaanderen final week, the sphere was missing a probable challenger to forestall the Dutchman’s victory. It felt inevitable. Add the truth that different contenders like Mads Perdersen and his Lidl-Trek squad have been hampered after the identical Classics-defining crash, and Van der Poel had all of it his personal method.
Watching the world champion roll out of Antwerp on Sunday morning, it felt like he was going to win. As others struggled within the muddy circumstances on the Koppenberg and Paterberg, it felt like he was going to win. And so he did.
None of that is in any method dangerous, and it’s testomony to how good – probably nice – a rider Van der Poel is, one which has now received 5 Monuments, however it doesn’t make for thrilling sport, one which enthrals. It was not a straightforward win by any means, however there was no nice battle on this 12 months’s males’s race. That is nothing new, in fact, and is replicated in stage racing for the time being by each Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard, however much less inevitability and extra of a contest can be very welcome.
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This stood in distinction to a way more open, rather more thrilling ladies’s race, which isn’t a shock. Elisa Longo Borghini’s victory got here on the finish of a titanic tussle, and was not assured till proper on the finish, because of Kasia Niewiadoma’s tenacity. The minor errors made by Lotte Kopecky and her SD Worx-Protime crew made the race much more predictable, and the grim circumstances made it an epic, one thing the lads’s race wasn’t.
Paris-Roubaix is subsequent week, a race that’s even more durable to manage or predict, however with no Van Aert, and others nonetheless affected by that Dwars crash, a Van der Poel victory can be laborious to wager in opposition to.
Simply as with the Dutchman’s good friend, Pogačar, it feels that it will take one thing outstanding for him to not be difficult for the win. I’ll be hoping for an even bigger problem at Roubaix, even when Van der Poel will get his arms on one other cobblestone within the velodrome.
I suppose, in a method, this can be a lengthy winded method of responding to these drunk followers on the Kwaremont. Van der Poel is likely to be spectacular, however I don’t get pleasure from inevitability.
This piece is a part of The Leadout, the providing of newsletters from Biking Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe right here.
