If you ignore times when he says *** like "I didn't think positioning before the final Oude Kwaremont" or misses a complete briefing and crashes out the first lap of an Olympic MTB race, or misses an echelon in the first hour of RvV 2023, or when he forgot to eat and lost himself a WCRR he was the favorite for, he is a genius indeed. Also, going for attrition lost him RVV the last 2 times he lost it.
He's gotten smarter racing wise, but he's made a lot of very dumb mistakes along the way.
And I didn't even remotely criticize him for racing for Philipsen. I just said that because I think it wasn't an adaptation during the race, I think it was always the plan. Also got himself boxed in before Pogs attack by the way.
And by the way, his positioning is great when he wants too. He just gets into the wrong spot on the regular because he misinterprets the race.