Van der Poel said in an interview his crack wasn't due to hunger. He was just finished, which I fully understand. Which made this race special for me, is that it was unpredictable and realistic. I don't want to see these bad weather WCs every year, but they definitely have their place.One thing that I find very hard to comprehend is the amount of negativity and criticism on the riders’ decisions from users of this forum. “Italy/Trentin screwed up”, “Küng didnt ride to win” etc etc. As if it’s not possible to ride a great race and not come up with the win. Italy rode a fantastic race as a team and put their strongest rider in a sprint finish with only two other riders. If you had offered this scenario to the Italians this morning they would gladly have taken it, every day of the week. Also Küng tried with everything he could on the last climb and Pedersen was almost dropped but it was not quite enough.
Van der Poel cracking was a surprise, I believe it was mainly because of inexperience. He forgot to eat, whereas Küng and Pedersen was eating gels several times in the last 30 k. He will learn from this.