You don't think digging deep on the climbs matters for how much you have in reserve for the sprint?! Matthews and Laporte only had to stay in touch, they never needed to do anything more than that before the sprint.
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Think we need to consider the idea that Van Aert's disappointing conversion rate is less down to being bad at sprinting and/or tactics in small groups, and more down to monument/WC-length races not really being his forte. Seems that the distance brings his sprint down from world-class sprinter level to still fast, but beatable for the other fast classics guys level.
I think a bit of it has also to do with the fact that he's not the super explosive type of sprinter, but one with a high topspeed. That makes him better in bunch sprints with leadout trains, but not as good in a reduced sprint where people usually start their sprint at a lower speed.
The think that is interesting to me is that he always finishes strong in Roubaix/on Roubaix-style stages, but starts slow and seems to suffer on the first sectors. Is that down to him pacing himself better than most guys or does he actually suffer on the first hard sectors when the full peloton hits them like it's 1km to go in a bunch sprint?
I don't agree, it's not like he has moments of randomly bonking. It is specifically his sprint that depletes hard. Also I don't think he's that fast in general, and in very long led out sprints he benefits from his much better aerobic/anaerobic systems compared to pure sprinty boys.
IMO the sample size for Roubaix style stages is really small, but I think flying on a few secteurs is definitely a terrible strategy which is why it's more and more important to not miss the increasingly large breakaways that go every year. You see the costs of the surges with everyone on the Roubaix cobbles.
Belgian Pozzato finishing in 4th place here.
Last time there was World Championships in Australia, Filippo Pozzato finished in 4th place. In 2010. Long may it continues
Last time there was World Championships in Australia, Filippo Pozzato finished in 4th place. In 2010. Long may it continues
Looking in hindsight, he should have done the TT race
Perhaps, but for example Trentin rides finales at the end of long, hard races just as often as he does outside them, yet his sprint at the end of them goes down a level compared to the competition anyway. So it's not impossible that it's specifically his sprint that suffers.
Less down to it being technical and more down to the need to accelerate out of corners over and over again. Not saying he would have won it, but surely if Foss can win it, he would have had a shot?
WVA has himself stated in several inscyd propaganda pieces that he is a sugar burner, or conversely fat metabolism limited. The idea being that if substantial amount of glycogen is burnt already during the build up to the finale, top end is impaired as there's eventually little to burn. Those pieces of course try to generate hype for the testing protocol and vlamax theory, which is alleged to uniquely (sic) address issues such as this one.
Without commenting on the inscyd model's general validity, which I personally doubt, the degradation of anaerobic and sprint performance after, say, 5000kj in races does fit the story quite well. In shorter races he does insane feats such as the TDF stage four, but is found lacking in longer ones.
Shoveling 120g or so of sugar into the gut every hour of the race may help, but perhaps punch after a long hard race just is his arch weakness
Without commenting on the inscyd model's general validity, which I personally doubt, the degradation of anaerobic and sprint performance after, say, 5000kj in races does fit the story quite well. In shorter races he does insane feats such as the TDF stage four, but is found lacking in longer ones.
Shoveling 120g or so of sugar into the gut every hour of the race may help, but perhaps punch after a long hard race just is his arch weakness
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Makes sense.
I also think he's probably not in Tour shape, and the Tour has taken a lot out of a lot of riders.
I wonder more and more if Van Aert is the cycling equivalent to the Norwegian cross country skier Martin Johnsrud Sundby. Incredible stable on a high level. Probably able to be on 97-98 % of max a bigger portion of the season than anyone else in the peloton. That and his great versaility gives a lot of wins and other top placements, but maybe his 100 % level is not as high as one might think. He should really win one of the top 6 one-day races soon to solidify his position up there among VdP, Pog and Remco.
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I don't recall Pozzato winning 3 successive CX World titles......
I'll give him that he couldn't race De Ronde this year and COVID probably hurt him before Roubaix and Liege, but other than that this seems pretty spot on. I think the niche where he is the truly best in the world is somewhat narrow, and a lot of the "so alround" narrative comes from being in TdF breakaways where breakaway formation on flats help preserve his legs much more so than the 60kg climbers and contensting every single reduced bunch sprint in races like PN or Dauphine which frankly isn't super important.
There's also the possibility that he is too good in March already and that that is impeding him right now at the end of a long season.
I'll give him one more classics season before I'll make a conclusion. Last year his top level in the biggest one day races were probably hampered both by him trying to peak both in the spring, in July and to the Worlds and by putting too much effort into TA and Tour of Britain. This year his spring form possibly was good enough to win, but covid hit at the worst possible time. But next year I want to see him sit in the finale of RVV and PR if he isn't sick or crahes.
Given the level of the competition in monuments, with Remco and Pogacar in the mix, he will need to start taking more chances if he wants to win. Crazy that a rider with such a a great sprint, bike handling and TT, and well above average climbing, does not have at least a few monuments.
I can very well see him ending up only second to Cav in the number of Tour stage wins in modern time and the one with most semi-classics wins in the last decades, but I'm not sure about the monuments. Maybe he should focus even more to peak in two weeks in the start of April next year.
Congrats to Remco. Wout rode a great race also, 4th place is pretty damn solid.
I feel so bad for Wout. But even more so I feel so bad for Wout looking like he went to a sand box in his pyjama. This jersey is horribly weird looking on most human beings imo. On him it's just worse of the worst.
How come they are so dirty in this race compared to other road races? I didn't notice during the race that the roads were so crazy dirty. No wonder Remco looked so weird too :O
How come they are so dirty in this race compared to other road races? I didn't notice during the race that the roads were so crazy dirty. No wonder Remco looked so weird too :O
Well, I was standing in the bend where Bissegger crashed on the Copenhagen time trial. The way Mathieu took that curve was absolutely nuts compared to the rest of the field.
It's definitely not just a meme.
He looked to be BY FAR the most active in the race compared to the riders he sprinted against. You didn't even realize they were in the race compared to Wout, and there was a good amount with no coverage.
Anyways, he didn't know they sprinted for 2nd, and really, it doesn't matter at all.
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