Nothing new in the New Year.
MVdP keeps smashing the field and Iserbyt continues with strong performances though he needed a couple of laps to recover from matching MVdP's tempo before securing the second place.
To me it seemed rather that Iserbyt just consolidated his lead. He knew or felt Mathieu was gone and couldn't match him, and it seemed like he was waiting for the group with his teammate Vantourenhout, not to recover but because riding alone for more than half the race was pointless. It was just that for the classification he didn't need to worry about Mathieu, and there was nobody else to cause a threat there. I think the idea was to get Vantourenhout on the podium, but that didn't work out. His GC was never in any danger. I think he also alluded to it in the post race interview.
I thought Iserbyt was in October form again. Guess not, or even October form isn’t good enough to remotely trouble Mathieu.
Had Iserbyt had this current form the first few weeks Mahtieu made his comeback, he might have troubled Mathieu a bit more. But it's illogical to think Mathieu hasn't improved since then either. I think both are now better than 6 or so weeks ago, so nothing changed. Whether or not Iserbyt is better than in october, i don't know. It's almost like what happened in Namen (hypothermia) sparked his form again.
Also, we can all agree Mathieu is a phenomenon. It would be a bit disingenuous to assume Iserbyt who is riding his first full pro year, would casually be kicking Mathieu's ass. If you would take away Mathieu, who is an outlier, Iserbyt would pretty much be dominating the season in his own right.
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Thibeau Nys now showing his skills. A few months ago he did it in practice, now he actually did it in the actual race. Watch the videos:
Thibau Nys kent het crossparcours in Baal als zijn broekzak. Dat demonstreerde de junior vanochtend in de Grote Prijs Sven Nys. De 17-jarige crosser liep de trappen niet op, neen, hij reed ze op.
sporza.be
He want's to go pro in two or three years.