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

[Valv.Piti]

This Lombardia route is by no means easy. MVDP will get absolutely smoked on Sormano no matter what shape he brings, its a very hard climb. As a matter of fact, I have actually done it countless of times and its mostly a 7-8% climb for 10 km into a small plateau lowering the avg. gradients and then kicking up towards the end. Way, way out of his league IMO, but if you believe in fairytales..

 

[Krzysztof_O]

This Lombardia route is by no means easy. MVDP will get absolutely smoked on Sormano no matter what shape he brings, its a very hard climb. As a matter of fact, I have actually done it countless of times and its mostly a 7-8% climb for 10 km into a small plateau lowering the avg. gradients and then kicking up towards the end. Way, way out of his league IMO, but if you believe in fairytales..

There's no official confirmation of his participation yet. Gravel WC is surely on his menu. If he starts then yeah, it will be difficult. Pogacar will be unreachable but under some good circumstances (he manages to catch a strong chasing group on the descent) MVP might get top3 there. It will be harder to achieve than during this WC and I think it's more likely he won't make it to the podium. Top10 is more realistic.

 

[DutchDynamite]

There's no official confirmation of his participation yet. Gravel WC is surely on his menu. If he starts then yeah, it will be difficult. Pogacar will be unreachable but under some good circumstances (he manages to catch a strong chasing group on the descent) MVP might get top3 there. It will be harder to achieve than during this WC and I think it's more likely he won't make it to the podium. Top10 is more realistic.

No way he gets top 3...not even in my dreams (i like him as a racer quiet a lot but we need to be realistic).

The route is still ridicously hard... and pogi is there with uae.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

he might have won Lombardia in the era that Bettini and Gilbert won it. Different course and different riders now

 

[Krzysztof_O]

he might have won Lombardia in the era that Bettini and Gilbert won it. Different course and different riders now

Hard to imagine a typical classics specialist winning this race now (Bettini had one GT top10 though). Nowadays, you need to be a really good climber to win...you basically need to be Pogacar so it's tricky for the rest!

 

[Peyroteo94]

he might have won Lombardia in the era that Bettini and Gilbert won it. Different course and different riders now

Bettini and Gilbert were better climbers than MVP (specially Bettini).

 

[Wyndbrook]

Sounds like his naughty boy riding on the pavement fun has not been forgotten.
Latvian president asking why he was not DQ for endangering spectators.

 

[Coffeeplanter]

Sounds like his naughty boy riding on the pavement fun has not been forgotten.
Latvian president asking why he was not DQ for endangering spectators.

They are very much in their right as well. Something like drafting and subsequent punishment leaves room and is always up for interpretation. Riding on the pavement, otoh, is not. The rulebook is clear, Van der Poel should be DQ'd.

 

[rallybanana]

I'd completely forgotten about that incident. 100% agree with Latvia on this one.

 

[Tim Cahill]

 

[Axel Hangleck]

They are very much in their right as well. Something like drafting and subsequent punishment leaves room and is always up for interpretation. Riding on the pavement, otoh, is not. The rulebook is clear, Van der Poel should be DQ'd.

Yeah, I can't disagree with that. Guilty, and should have been DSQ within 5-10 mins. It was that blatant......

The UCI really haven't had a great Worlds......failing to DSQ, and the tragic issues over an injured 'missing' rider.....

 

[samhocking]

If the UCI comms really said 'it wouldn't be good for the sport' to have DQ MVDP for breaking the rules, that's a particularly worrying statement in one of the sports most important races and one actually organised by UCI itself rather than a Race Organiser directly.

 

[theyoungest]

Sounds like his naughty boy riding on the pavement fun has not been forgotten.
Latvian president asking why he was not DQ for endangering spectators.

I'm sure it's really about the spectators for the Latvian cycling federation, and not about their guy potentially finishing on the podium if MVDP got disqualified

 

[Highlander]

I'm sure it's really about the spectators for the Latvian cycling federation, and not about their guy potentially finishing on the podium if MVDP got disqualified

Does it really matter? I doubt that Skujins would have gotten the same latitude if he was the one caught on tv riding on the pavement.

 

[Gratemans]

I'm sure it's really about the spectators for the Latvian cycling federation, and not about their guy potentially finishing on the podium if MVDP got disqualified

And what's wrong with that exactly? I love Mathieu, but he should have been disqualified. And Latvia brings up a good point: if bigger names get punished less, smaller cycling nations like themselves will be at a disadvantage even more.

 

[Tim Cahill]

They didn't have a problem throwing Luke Rowe out of Flanders for trying to avoid crashing a few years back.

 

[Red Rick]

If the UCI comms really said 'it wouldn't be good for the sport' to have DQ MVDP for breaking the rules, that's a particularly worrying statement in one of the sports most important races and one actually organised by UCI itself rather than a Race Organiser directly.

Wouldnt be good for sport to punish cheating if the cheater is popular enough

 

[theyoungest]

And what's wrong with that exactly? I love Mathieu, but he should have been disqualified. And Latvia brings up a good point: if bigger names get punished less, smaller cycling nations like themselves will be at a disadvantage even more.

I don't like them pretending that they're doing this for the greater good when they have a clear personal stake in this. It makes it a bit hypocritical. Whether MVDP gets DQ'ed or not, I couldn't care less, and I doubt he does either.

I don't think it really matters about how big the cycling nation is, after all Nils Eekhoff got robbed of a world title a few years ago and he's Dutch. If there is a double standard, it's probably more about how big the rider is. Pogi would probably get a free pass as well.

 

[Rackham]

Oh look, rules arbitrarily not getting enforced for xyz reasons... and people wonder why Rog's 20 second drafting penalty in the Vuelta made some of us ROFL.

Welcome to pro cycling... and it's inexplicable inconsistencies.

 

[Gratemans]

I don't like them pretending that they're doing this for the greater good when they have a clear personal stake in this. It makes it a bit hypocritical. Whether MVDP gets DQ'ed or not, I couldn't care less, and I doubt he does either.

I don't think it really matters about how big the cycling nation is, after all Nils Eekhoff got robbed of a world title a few years ago and he's Dutch. If there is a double standard, it's probably more about how big the rider is. Pogi would probably get a free pass as well.

That's actually what I meant with 'bigger names': bigger riders.
Smaller cycling nations often don't have such names in their selection.

 

[Gratemans]

Oh look, rules arbitrarily not getting enforced for xyz reasons... and people wonder why Rog's 20 second drafting penalty in the Vuelta made some of us ROFL.

Welcome to pro cycling... and it's inexplicable inconsistencies.

Are you trying to make some sort of point?
I wasn't laughing at Rog's penalty either. It was a deserved penalty. (He agreed btw, said that he took a gamble there) MvdP should have been penalised as well. If they stop being inconsistent, I'm sure riders will start following the rules pretty damn quick.

Or we could just shrug and say 'welcome to pro cycling' I guess. It's not an attitude that'll result in anything positive but hey.

 

[Danskebjerge]

It seems people have trouble distinguishing between the nature of incidents. Cutting a corner via the pavement with many kilometres to the finish line is obviously not as serious an offence as if it had happened with 5 k to go. Also there is a significant difference between doing what van der Poel did within a second and getting pacing from vehicles to get back to a group or riding on a bike path for a couple of hundred meters during a TT.

It's the same in bunch sprints. Pushing occurs, but not all riders that push are punished for it. It depends on how serious the action was. And it can't be any different, you can't apply zero tolerance to cycling nor can you ignore all kind of offences.

 

[proffate]

It seems people have trouble distinguishing between the nature of incidents. Cutting a corner via the pavement with many kilometres to the finish line is obviously not as serious an offence as if it had happened with 5 k to go. Also there is a significant difference between doing what van der Poel did within a second and getting pacing from vehicles to get back to a group or riding on a bike path for a couple of hundred meters during a TT.

I think you are wrong on both counts. The move was dangerous, and he forced spectators to jump aside, which is the main reason he should be DQed. If you don't punish consistently, it just invites more riders to repeat the dangerous moves until a spectator is hit.

And secondly, he did gain an advantage which was apparently significant to him in the moment. Otherwise why would he have done it? He just felt like terrorizing spectators for no reason?

 

[Danskebjerge]

I think you are wrong on both counts. The move was dangerous, and he forced spectators to jump aside, which is the main reason he should be DQed. If you don't punish consistently, it just invites more riders to repeat the dangerous moves until a spectator is hit.

And secondly, he did gain an advantage which was apparently significant to him in the moment. Otherwise why would he have done it? He just felt like terrorizing spectators for no reason?

I do think it was an illegal move, but no other rider had disadvantage from it, and it probably didn't influence the result at the end of the race.

Offences in that category are rarely punished. In sprints for instance you hardly ever see a sanction unless another rider crashed or was close to crashing. And even if a rider does get punished for a reckless move, he normally only gets relegated which is a far softer consequence than being DQ'ed as some people want van der Poel to be.

There is something missing in the rules about minor offences. In Formula 1 there are stop and go penalties. I don't know if that would work in cycling, but at least a yellow card has been introduced. That could be used more.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

I do think it was an illegal move, but no other rider had disadvantage from it, and it probably didn't influence the result at the end of the race.

Offences in that category are rarely punished. In sprints for instance you hardly ever see a sanction unless another rider crashed or was close to crashing. And even if a rider does get punished for a reckless move, he normally only gets relegated which is a far softer consequence than being DQ'ed as some people want van der Poel to be.

There is something missing in the rules about minor offences. In Formula 1 there are stop and go penalties. I don't know if that would work in cycling, but at least a yellow card has been introduced. That could be used more.

He clearly endangered spectators. I don‘t know why they‘d have to be riders to count. If they had dressed up in cycling clothes, should he be disqualified then because they‘re cyclists? They could have given him a yellow card if they wanted to have absolutely no consequences because this was Van der Poel‘s last road race of the season.