Still, MVDP had a negative approach to Van Aert ánd thus to himself. Even that despair counter from Wout in last kilometre he chased down, only to let go of the pedals afterwards and not sprinting for fifth ... it all made no sense.
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Its the other way aroundThe.
Dutch.
Are.
Without.
Fault.
Why not French?Its the other way around
I just consider him Belgian when he loses
This is so naïve, sorry. It's almost like he was "obligated" to do it, right? After a while they will indeed just assume he'll keep doing it since he did it before. And again, what's the point to keep countering, without placing an attack himself, without cooperating with van Aert when possible, when the only thing he's doing is the dirty work for the others to profit from and killing himself in the process? So what you are saying is exactly like van Aert described, Mathieu didn't race to win, (only countered, didn't cooperate or attack himself) but to let van Aert loose. I' willing to assume it wasn't personal or even conscious but more of a reflex/instinct, but it is exactly what happened. He should have had the sense to refuse, meaning someone else would ultimately have to do it, so he could profit from it for once, or let van Aert go. But he indeed couldn't let that happen, even if it meant losing himself. Pedersen ultimately made the jump to Bettiol & co, there is no reason to assume only Mathieu would have done it. But of course, if he keeps offering, the others won't refuse.The others would have never done the heavy lifting and you know that as well as me. It's logical they look at VDP when Van Aert goes.
He said it was convenient for them that they (Mathieu) rode like that, not that they waited for Matheu to close the gap to van Aert every time. Or i must have seen a different interview.Pederson even admitted that in his post-race interview.
Then.He.
Was.
Gassed.
(even said so in the interview, he was basically empty after closing the last attack)
It's really not that difficult to grasp.
Very true!This whole thing is ridiculous. Being the strongest rider of the moment Wout naturally got shadowed by one of the other favorites.
He’s simply experiencing what it’s like to be marked as the favorite. Like Boonen said, he just has to deal with it.
I don't think it was too strategic and I think MvdP wants any wins he can get right now. To do that, you need to be quite ahead of others. I think they are both competitive animals and the brains turned off. MvdP marked what he knows, but he didn't race that smart. And neither did WvA - you cannot always just hammer. We'll see next weekend how they both fair, but they might make the race epic, or they might both blow it again.Maybe it was just me, but I thought during the race that VDP was trying to see how was Wout after the mini-break and tried to send two messages for De Ronde: "If you attack on the bergs I can go with you and if you try to power away on the flats I can close the gap".
I don't think either that VDP was overly concerned with the GW result. If a win opportunity appeared, the better, but the big goal is the Ronde. GW wasn't even on the program before the Amstel cancellation and he put it there because he needed race miles for the classics (sure, this was before Roubaix was cancelled).
But, my impression too during the race, mainly in the last 5k's, was that VDP made sure that Van Aert didn't win and get a confidence boost before Flanders. But he surely was gassed in the end. If he wasn't, no way he would sat up and let Wout win the mini sprint.
Sorry for the late response, I got behind on some threads (work keeps getting in the way of my fun). WVA's "progress" at 26 is due to him being in only his second season of focusing on the road. Don't forget that he has three rainbow kits from CX. You hit it on the head though, he is a top level rider!Well, if he can improve his climbing even half as much as VA has in literally just a few months, who knows. Then again, it's been a while (the 90's or early 2000's) since I've seen a top level rider "progress" the way Wout has at age 26.
Yes - white shorts.
As for the TdF/Olympics; not many XCO medal contenders use the Tour as prep. With his absence from the short block of MTB racing, his ranking has taken a hit, and he's not going to have a great starting position, unless he races the World Cups next year.
What a champion to finish it off like this. He needed it to save his season and he took it against his rival since way back who dominated him this year.
He was off at Strade and San Remo. But he managed to get back into very good shape. I still feel I have seen better shape of MvdP last year (like in Vlaanderen) than anytime this year, except for Binck bank.Mvdp barely raced WVA this year until today and last week
And what was said before, covid thew is season around in a diferent way and they handled that poorly