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

[Oldman]

Good training day!
Ride hard for the win, and even if that doesn't work out it sets JP up nicely with no pressure to ride until the end.

The weakest of sauces today. If he was confident he could take Wout, he goes to the line. He wasn't.

He probably knew he didn't have his best early enough after all of his recent racing. Throttling back and still staying in the break becomes your prime pro duty: let your very able teammate take the win if you're going to get beat. IMO if Wout could've dropped him he'd have tried harder to do that. Wout's on the rebound and knows better than overextend, get dropped yourself and provide a free path to what follows. His team did that several days before when Mathieu snuck one by...

 

[Barkintheeye]

I like how you framed that—and it’s the typical thing we all tend to do with retrospective fantasies / wishes. We consider what if he did “x” or if “y” had happened but assume the other elements of a past event remain static. But if one could really go back and change one thing, it’s possible or likely other elements of that past change as well.

Not "possible or likely" but "definitely". Outcome we will still never know...