He should not have been that much weaker, which I believe was as much mental as physical, thus he choked (which means you do not rise to the occassion). And saying he "didn't need to prove anything" was merely a facade that only demonstrated his own insecurity.
Not rising to the occasion is NOT choking lol
But he was weaker, we saw that already in E3 even that he won, he would have big problems in the Flanders climbs.
In fact I would say its difficult or rare to choke in cycling because there are not a lot of cases where there is an overwhelming favorite/strongest that 'should' win.
When you bogey the last few holes in golf to lose by 1 or something like that, ya call it a choke.
The 3rd best rider getting 4th place is not really a choke job.
Cycling 'choke jobs' i can think of... hmm....
Rogla in the tdf mayyyybe????
QS vs Stannard in some belgian classic a few years back
I dunno, but it would be cool to make a list
edit - you could say wout choked in the cx champs a couple months ago, i wouldn't fight u on that.