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

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That's the over-valuation of WT races for you. If you finish high in 5/6 WT races you are top 10 in the ranking.

Imagine with his program this year, similar results will have him end up top 6/7.
I was chuckling at VdP being top 10, then I saw on PCS he's not top 10 yet?

also I saw GvA at like 6th and literally couldn't remember a single race he won in 2019. Yeah sure I forgot about Montreal but what the ***.
 
I don't think "exclusive" is the right word. Because of the (criminal) financial situation that sees women riders so underpaid and because of the relative paucity of top-tier races, women are forced to be generalists as opposed to specialists. Even in just one discipline, the road, where, yes, there are riders described as sprinters, climbers, and GC talents, the specialization isn't as ingrained in the sport. Or more to the point, in general, the women have to work harder for their success than the men, because they don't have the option to hyper-specialize, either in discipline or in specializations within a discipline. Other factors include the facts that so many of the women are forced to be part-timers in both racing and training because they can't make a living on their bikes (which is one reason the women's peloton is so much better educated than the men's--there are doctors, lawyers, and college professors among the women, something you rarely see among the men).

Anyway, it's apples and oranges. Until more parity and fairness is introduced into the sport--even if it's enforced top-down by the UCI, which may not be the best way to do it--the gender divide practically makes for different sports altogether.

I don’t necessarily agree that women have to work harder in this context. It is exactly because of the hyper-specialization in men’s cycling that it is harder to achieve Mathieu’s feat.

In women’s cycling if you are a talented rider you can more easily figure prominently in different cycling disciplines. Much like Prevot or Vos. It’s also apparent in RR exclusively when you look at Van der Breggen, Van Vleuten, and Vos for example. They are favorites for the classics, tt’s and the GT’s. In men’s cycling you barely see that due to the hyper-specialization.
 
Not sure it's specialisation or if it's different distributions in physical attributes which just totally changes the landscape. Minimum bike weight favors heavier riders uphill and if the ideal climber weight is say 60kg or so then that would probably fall right in the middle of the women's pack while being on the relative bottom end of the men's peloton. Same for sprinter and rouleur physiques, where you get a very clear trade off between population size and how well suited the physique is for that specialisation. Basically very few women are gonna have the physical attributes of a rouleur.

But I think it's kinda BS to equate VdP to Ferrand Prevot here and emphasize how much harder it is to combine the disciplins when Ferrand Prevot literally won the rainbow jersey in all disciplins in a span of 12 months.
 
Not sure it's specialisation or if it's different distributions in physical attributes which just totally changes the landscape. Minimum bike weight favors heavier riders uphill and if the ideal climber weight is say 60kg or so then that would probably fall right in the middle of the women's pack while being on the relative bottom end of the men's peloton. Same for sprinter and rouleur physiques, where you get a very clear trade off between population size and how well suited the physique is for that specialisation. Basically very few women are gonna have the physical attributes of a rouleur.

But I think it's kinda BS to equate VdP to Ferrand Prevot here and emphasize how much harder it is to combine the disciplins when Ferrand Prevot literally won the rainbow jersey in all disciplins in a span of 12 months.

Maybe, or maybe it’s exactly because of the fact that such a feat is even possible in women’s cycling that one can gauge the degree of difficulty in achieving it vis-a-vis men’s cycling.

I think Vos would have been able to achieve that feat as well had she taken mountain-biking seriously.
 
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It's not totally out of the question MvdP could ever do that. CX worlds in february, MTB worlds in june/july, Road worlds in september. But road is the hardest because he would need the right course and the competition is strongest there. In CX/MTB the strongest guy usually wins.. in road not, plus it's simply a lot closer.
 
MvdP is growing so much harder than his team. I fear a Sunweb/Dumoulin scenario coming up. Sunweb couldn't match Dumoulin's speed of development (in the beginning, yes) and the initial succeses became frustrations. Wonder how long this can hold, but I wouldn't give it another 2 years. By then MvdP wants to stop playing and will be in need of some proper support.
 
MvdP is growing so much harder than his team. I fear a Sunweb/Dumoulin scenario coming up. Sunweb couldn't match Dumoulin's speed of development (in the beginning, yes) and the initial succeses became frustrations. Wonder how long this can hold, but I wouldn't give it another 2 years. By then MvdP wants to stop playing and will be in need of some proper support.
The plan is to turn this team into a WT team. It's in the article i posted two weeks or so ago. I think they are aware they need to push it.
 
MvdP is growing so much harder than his team. I fear a Sunweb/Dumoulin scenario coming up. Sunweb couldn't match Dumoulin's speed of development (in the beginning, yes) and the initial succeses became frustrations. Wonder how long this can hold, but I wouldn't give it another 2 years. By then MvdP wants to stop playing and will be in need of some proper support.

This year's team is already a marked improvement on last year's, Canyon's contribution is considerably higher, I'd say they're well on track. VdP's contract is to end-2023 and is solid enough that Lefevre didn't pursue trying to get him out of it.

One complication is I believe all of the 2020 WorldTour teams have a three-year licence with the exception of a relegation spot? So for Alpecin-Fenix to secure a WT gig they'd need a team to fold or be ranked no. 1 to gain promotion to WT.
 
so basically the team told him to take it easy this week, but he is 'allowed' to try in 1 stage.

I wonder if this was the stage (held on until 4km to go) or if this was still 'good training'. And where would he try if not? Tomorrow is a sprint stage but he'll likely have no chance versus Jakobsen/Viviani.
Malhao is questionable, it's still almost 3km of climbing. I think against the upper limit of his posibilities. Not impossible
TT is good for him with twists and turns, but no chance vs Dennis and Remco.
 
so basically the team told him to take it easy this week, but he is 'allowed' to try in 1 stage.

I wonder if this was the stage (held on until 4km to go) or if this was still 'good training'. And where would he try if not? Tomorrow is a sprint stage but he'll likely have no chance versus Jakobsen/Viviani.
Malhao is questionable, it's still almost 3km of climbing. I think against the upper limit of his posibilities. Not impossible
TT is good for him with twists and turns, but no chance vs Dennis and Remco.
What TT's have we seen VDP do? I just can't think of them and not sure what to expect. The guy's pure power would have me thinking he could do really well.
 
so basically the team told him to take it easy this week, but he is 'allowed' to try in 1 stage.

I wonder if this was the stage (held on until 4km to go) or if this was still 'good training'. And where would he try if not? Tomorrow is a sprint stage but he'll likely have no chance versus Jakobsen/Viviani.
Malhao is questionable, it's still almost 3km of climbing. I think against the upper limit of his posibilities. Not impossible
TT is good for him with twists and turns, but no chance vs Dennis and Remco.
He said he's not interested in the ITT to Sporza yesterday. It's been too long and he hasn't trained on it.
My guess is he'll try his luck on the 4th stage. He's riding Flèche Wallonne this year, and he seems adamant that he can get a result there (i'm not a believer, but i've been proven wrong by some guys in the not so distant past), so it would only make sense that he tries to go for the win here. If they don't push the tempo early on the climb, if he can hang on long enough (maybe today was a test as well) then they might have a problem on their hands with Mathieu.
 
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https://www.indeleiderstrui.nl/alge...st-zichzelf-nog-maar-eens-ik-snap-er-niks-van

Basically says he was completely surprised he could hang on for so long. He said he was working for his climber initially but that one dropped off soon. Then he stayed on as a test and said when he dropped off there were only 20 guys left. "Much better than I expected. I'm way too heavy for this type of work"

Eventually, people will realise that he's too big to be a GT contender. He'll just have to settle with being a CX, MTB & Classics rider......(which is ridiculous in itself)
 
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Eventually, people will realise that he's too big to be a GT contender. He'll just have to settle with being a CX, MTB & Classics rider......(which is ridiculous in itself)
Honestly, i find it a bit offensive to other riders, as well as to Mathieu himself, that some people (let's be honest, most sane people aren't) are still wondering or thinking he would/should be able to be a GT/GC rider, based on the info that we have. As if it's that easy. As if he wouldn't have to change his style, physique, training method, schedule, attitude etc completely, as if he wouldn't have to give up a large part of what makes him special "now" (being (among) the best in different disciplines). And based on what info? For guys like Evenepoel and Pogacar it's been a recurring question "but can he do it on a longer climb"... "can he do it against a stronger field"... "3 weeks in a row" etc... But for Mathieu, who gets dropped 5k from the finish on a 7k climb, it should be no problem. Or, at least, he should drop everything he loves (CX, XC, classics, his freedom...) just to try and see.

The media is to blame as well. Yesterday the guys of Eurosport were actually talking about if it would be possible that that stage would be the stage were he was going to try to win. Because he was allowed one stage to do his thing (by his team manager). Before Amstel (which ironically, he won), the interview with Nelissen i think it was, on NOS was all about "how it would be possible for him NOT to win". Basically, there was no way he could not win. In this, the Dutch media are just as bad as Belgian media.

It's amazing how people would still try and change a near perfect athlete. It's almost like trying to turn a 400 meter worldchampion who also does well in 1000 meter races, into a marathon runner.
 
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It's amazing how people would still try and change a near perfect athlete. It's almost like trying to turn a 400 meter world champion who also does well in 1000 meter races, into a marathon runner.

I quite agree....he's doing things nobody else is currently doing......
To be honest, it's quite annoying, as is the 'When is he going to move to the road full time?'

Just let him do what he's doing; which is re-writing what is possible for a male cyclist (yes, Vos, PF-P have done similar) - and that pro cycling isn't just about the road.
 
Honestly, i find it a bit offensive to other riders, as well as to Mathieu himself, that some people (let's be honest, most sane people aren't) are still wondering or thinking he would/should be able to be a GT/GC rider, based on the info that we have. As if it's that easy. As if he wouldn't have to change his style, physique, training method, schedule, attitude etc completely, as if he wouldn't have to give up a large part of what makes him special "now" (being (among) the best in different disciplines). And based on what info? For guys like Evenepoel and Pogacar it's been a recurring question "but can he do it on a longer climb"... "can he do it against a stronger field"... "3 weeks in a row" etc... But for Mathieu, who gets dropped 5k from the finish on a 7k climb, it should be no problem. Or, at least, he should drop everything he loves (CX, XC, classics, his freedom...) just to try and see.

The media is to blame as well. Yesterday the guys of Eurosport were actually talking about if it would be possible that that stage would be the stage were he was going to try to win. Because he was allowed one stage to do his thing (by his team manager). Before Amstel (which ironically, he won), the interview with Nelissen i think it was, on NOS was all about "how it would be possible for him NOT to win". Basically, there was no way he could not win. In this, the Dutch media are just as bad as Belgian media.

It's amazing how people would still try and change a near perfect athlete. It's almost like trying to turn a 400 meter worldchampion who also does well in 1000 meter races, into a marathon runner.
Same crap we see all the time. I remember hearing similar stuff about Sagan, Cancellara, and a few others over the years. :rolleyes:
 
Same crap we see all the time. I remember hearing similar stuff about Sagan, Cancellara, and a few others over the years. :rolleyes:
Haha, you're right about Cancellara. I remember that. Can't remember the same about Sagan, but that's probably me. I even remember Merckx saying back in 2011 that Gilbert had a bigger chance to win the TDF than Jurgen Van Den Broeck (who finished top 5 the year before).
 

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