• The Cycling News forum is still looking to add volunteer moderators with. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Teams & Riders The "MVP" Mathieu Van der Poel Road Discussion Thread

Page 171 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Basically the level of mental health issues among today's youth, and going back some decades, seems to have grown considerably. Almost everyone has, or claims to have, some learning disability. The level of expectation and hence anxiety among today's youth has consequences from chronic depression to mass murder. It's not about those in the majority not shooting down their classmates after having been locked in their rooms on social media for months (with the parents not giving a damn), but the unsettling frequency with which such heinous crimes are committed, an unprecedented phenomenon, dispite the fact that, yes, even ancient Romans complained about the lack of discipline and virtue of the day's youth.
But kids in parts of the world where discipline is really strict are also far more likely to commit suicide. US is on a decline. The discipline of youth in upcoming Asia ain't no small feature. And it surely also doesn't help online prank. Just look at their fandoms and you'll know they're next level of crazy.

Neurology matters a lot; not even all brains learns from punishment. If for example you want to change how a psychopath acts you can only do it through rewards. Punishment just doesn't work on that brain. Just like a blind cannot see.

Since we are more humans more humans will also end up different than when we were fewer. So more people are getting singled out.

I am the first to see huge problems with what Internet does to the brain in terms of damaging patience, concentration etc etc but I also don't see discipline as some free for all solution. At all.
 
So can we please have the humility to admit that we know nothing of the family in question, and have no confidence beyond presumption in passing comment on them.
As i already said, this is quite besides the point. The kids were repeat offenders. The parents are free to educate their children as they see fit, that's not the issue. But that doesn't take away the fact that they ARE still responsible for them. It was/is up to them to make sure their kids did/do not harass strangers. If they failed at parenting, at educating, they should do/have done a better job at supervising them. That's it. It really doesn't matter whether the kids brains are or are not yet developed. There is no need to get into a discussion about how parents should discipline their kids, which parenting tactics work best. It doesn't matter. We don't need to know about the family dynamic. As a society we have established what is acceptable social behaviour and what the kids did, does not fall under that. And for that, the parents are responsible. If not by correcting, then by preventing. Simple as that.
 
I find it extraordinary that people consider themselves entitled to make such crass judgements on the grounds of absolutely zero evidence. Have you ever even heard the two parents communicate with each other? Do you know the first thing about their family circumstances or arrangements?
That's based on how they portraid themselves in the press, and on how the mother talked to MVDP. It's called understanding human nature.

I find it equally extraordinary that peole feel any need to leap to conclusions about people they will almost certainly never meet or have any interaction with. Why are you in any way bothered about how decisions are reached in that household?
I'm not bothered how decisions are made in that household. You said that the father wasn't pleased with what their kids did, and that he reprehended them. Do you think those kids care, when the mother fully supports them? When the mother said that MVDP shouldn't have been able to leave the country? If parents don't form a front, kids choose what's easiest for them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
But kids in parts of the world where discipline is really strict are also far more likely to commit suicide. US is on a decline. The discipline of youth in upcoming Asia ain't no small feature. And it surely also doesn't help online prank. Just look at their fandoms and you'll know they're next level of crazy.

Neurology matters a lot; not even all brains learns from punishment. If for example you want to change how a psychopath acts you can only do it through rewards. Punishment just doesn't work on that brain. Just like a blind cannot see.

Since we are more humans more humans will also end up different than when we were fewer. So more people are getting singled out.

I am the first to see huge problems with what Internet does to the brain in terms of damaging patience, concentration etc etc but I also don't see discipline as some free for all solution. At all.
I think we live in a world of excesses and have progressed beyond a natural state, which is making It increasingly difficult to live in and accept our nature, which is unnatural and this, in part, explains certain abominations unheard of in the past. Granted then there were others, but you get my point. I don't agree that punishment never serves a useful purpose. Of course, it does not always and must not be excessive, but none ever is absurd.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt and noob
That's based on how they portraid themselves in the press, and on how the mother talked to MVDP. It's called understanding human nature.


I'm not bothered how decisions are made in that household. You said that the father wasn't pleased with what their kids did, and that he reprehended them. Do you think those kids care, when the mother fully supports them? When the mother said that MVDP shouldn't have been able to leave the country? If parents don't form a front, kids choose what's easiest for them.
You just carry on living in your fantasy construction of what has happened between those people if that entertains you...
 
  • Haha
Reactions: jmdirt
I personally still don't understand how the sustained adrenaline efforts needed to produce the results MVDP does (plus the products going into his body) wouldn't affect his brain outside cycling. Logically it should result in higher adrenaline levels even outside races.

Adrenaline ain't just going nowhere on its own and certain hormones makes the brain addicted to them.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: jmdirt
As i already said, this is quite besides the point. The kids were repeat offenders. The parents are free to educate their children as they see fit, that's not the issue. But that doesn't take away the fact that they ARE still responsible for them. It was/is up to them to make sure their kids did/do not harass strangers. If they failed at parenting, at educating, they should do/have done a better job at supervising them. That's it. It really doesn't matter whether the kids brains are or are not yet developed. There is no need to get into a discussion about how parents should discipline their kids, which parenting tactics work best. It doesn't matter. We don't need to know about the family dynamic. As a society we have established what is acceptable social behaviour and what the kids did, does not fall under that. And for that, the parents are responsible. If not by correcting, then by preventing. Simple as that.
100%
 
As a journalist again; you do know we are masters in getting people to respond in such a way as it builds our story, right?

So when you for example have a teenage daughter saying her mom doesn't care and that her sisters does it often you don't know how the reporter got that answer and what exactly it means.
 
You just carry on living in your fantasy construction of what has happened between those people if that entertains you...
Just because I have a different opinion doesn't mean the construction of what happened is a fantasy. I'm just saying that the children are little shits, that their mother is even worse, and that MVDP handled this poorly. Assault is not the answer to harassment, but the way the parents handled this is despicable.
 
The vast majority of kids do not commit mass murder. And, as hrotha just pointed out; Columbine was 23 years ago! Or do you think everything since the 80es is "recent"? Do you think not just cycling, but life in general, was "the best" in the 80es?
I stand by what I said; the kids will mostly be okay. Even those two girls could turn out just fine.
In the '80s I was king of the world (as far as I knew). ;)
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Escarabajo and noob
Honestly though, I don't think it's inappropriate if you're being harassed by a couple of kids to take them by the scruff of the neck and give them a good dressing-down, even if it obviously wasn't the cleverest way to go about it. Shaky mobile phone footage and high-pitched shrieking can turn this into a horror film scene, but all in all i think the whole drama is laughable.
 
I just know them by following by a long distance, but personalitywise, Van der Poel seems to me like the cycling version of Max Verstappen. Two world class athletes who dedicate themselves from a young age to the sport they are good in and reach the pinnacle of their sport from a very young age. Also coming both from a family with tradition on the respective sports and with fathers who were very close and present in their sport upbringing. And while they seem killer on the job, they are still a bit boyish off it and have a bit of a "i don't give a crap" attitude and a bit of impersonality, if I can call it like that, towards others.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jmdirt
An extreme case of teens 2017_Interstate_75_rock-throwing_deaths
If the girls donot do door knocking, MVDP would not be news. Kids or not there are consequences of that action to other people. At the same time i think he got expediency and leniency as the Aus Govt wanted him quickly out of their hair.
Had the girls not Knocked at the door, MvdP would have made the long list of favorites who let Remco go!
 
can any Dutch or Belgian friends comment on how this is going over at home?
Is MvDP being treated as a victim or criminal or just bad judgement?
I imagine the more the anglo media plays this up, the more defensive the home reaction will be
MVDP is being seen as a victim that handled the situation poorly. There has been support on Twitter by Sven Nys, Jan Vertonghen (Belgian football player), and the fiancee of Evenepoel. Based on comments on news articles, most people support MVDP and think the kids are being pampered.