Echoes said:
Yes both. Okay, it was a bit like Gieten 2015. But then, all the epic battles with Wout in Autumn 2016, especially Zonhoven comes to mind, that race could have turned in Wout's favour. That was the short period when observers could get the illusion that Wout was on par with Mathieu, though Wout by then already knew that if Mathieu kept on like that he had a problem. Surely that edition of Zonhoven was equally a mental battle as it was a physical one, wasn't it?
There have been at least 2 world championships, where he gave up, mentally. A WC, a classic monument, a GT... is not exactly the same as one out of 30 CX crosses per season. The bigger the stakes, the bigger the pressure, the bigger the disappointment in failure. In cyclocross, if something goes wrong in one race, there is always a second race the same week, a new Super Prestige a few weeks later, a new World Cup race next month... You can't really compare that. Like i said on the previous page, a GT contender has 1, 2 or 3 big goals a year. If you miss those, you wait another year. I think this is something that would not go well with him, and the biggest reason why he won't go for GT, and not the fact that he's too fat.
You claim he is too heavy to race GT's. Right now, maybe, but obviously he could work on that. You think 2009 Froome was on the same weight he is now? Thomas? How much does he weigh now? 69? 73? Now way he is built too heavy that with proper training, it would be impossible to get his weight to GT level.
As for "the illusion Wout was on par". Seriously. Wout wàs on par. The last 3 seasons they have both managed their seasons differently. Mathieu had been injured twice early in the season, if i remember correctly. Meaning his season started later and he was fresher later in the season, when Wout was busy consolidating his lead in the classifications where he was leading, while Mathieu was hunting for victories. Last winter, it was clear as day that Wout was aiming for the later part of the season and the spring classics right after. Obviously many "authorities in the field" (pun intended) had missed that glaring fact. Wuyts, Nys, they never saw it coming that Wout was in top form when the WC came around. Only one guy knew and noticed: Adrie van der Poel. He mentioned it before the WC, that Wout was not riding all out, and when chose his moments, the difference with Mathieu was nihil. And then the WC happened.