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

[Barkintheeye]

As one of the biggest fans of Mathieu for over 10 years I could already see by the way he had to go around the peloton, fighting alone to get there after coming back with Philipsen. It wasn’t as smooth as he normally could do alone. With the Cipressa ridden hard I also saw Pogi keep pushing the first km’s of the descent. I’ve never seen Mathieu having issues before holding wheels in a downhill. Normally he excels there and recover better than others. That’s when you’re on the limit and don’t have any extra energy left. He also skipped a couple turns on the flat before riding with them. I hoped he could’ve overcome this but it didn’t looked good anymore and I knew it would been difficult to hold their wheel on the Poggio.

Also I don’t think this will translate in a bad Ronde and/or Roubaix. His level was as good as he could, the circumstances were not in his favor anymore. If everything is okay from the crash, I expect him to battle close again with Pogi.

Hope you’re right and MVDP definitely looked cooked at the descent from Cipressa. He was having a hard time even drafting