It's easy to analyze because the mistakes are obvious. Van der Poel very clearly does not expect to win every race he enters. He admits Pogacar is better than him, yet he does not change his approach to maximize his chance of winning to reflect that.
What's it called when you repeat same thing over and over again, expecting different results. 🤔
If he admits after the fact and you question the approach he is being situationally realistic. It's amazing that many here pillory Tadej for demonstrating serious skills and denigrate all but the Belgian losers. Eddy would be embarrassed and he knows how he was treated by Spanish and French fans. If these postulations on tactics weren't so influenced by regional chauvinism they might be worth recommending to MvP.
Yes, I famously hates Dutch people. That must be the answer
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Belgians send death threats to other Belgian riders....Who knows what motivations require such analysis of guys riding a bike. Don't think there was an Alpecin rider in the same time zone as Mathieu so I'd rely on his judgement. He doesn't seem to whine or lose sleep over not winning since MSR gave him a dose already.
the characterization may say more about the commenter than the actual subject.
Now I certainly don't want to speak for Red Rick, but I feel his criticism of Mathieu is mostly out of a frustration that he knows he would be able to achieve better results by riding differently.
That is the heart of what I witnessed. Tadej took every favorable meter of terrain to punish whoever could follow and had the poise to settle into a great tempo after. Rinse, repeat time and again. It was alot like Strade Bianche where he got gaps, settled in and monitored the chasers. To Rick's point the chasers seldom collaborated to any success. They rode to get what they could.
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I think it would make more sense to direct your comments to whoever it was making those statements, because they weren’t being said by the regular posters in the race threads on this forum. I didn’t hear any claims here that Pidcock shouldn’t stay with Pog in MSR. And while many folks did want MVDP to stop working with Pogacar in de Ronde, I don’t recall anyone saying he should stop and wait. But maybe I miss one, so please go back through the 50 or so pages of the race thread to point those out. But if you’re complaining about what media announcers and commentators were saying don’t frame it as naïveté here. No need to increase the straw man population.
That’s not want he said or what I was responding to: he said “there are tactical gurus who say that Pidcock shouldn't have gone with Pogacar.” I know you know that going with and working with are two different things.
That doesn’t make sense to me? Could You first go back and read his or her quote? I was contesting two different points : that “people” whoever he meant, said MvDP should “stop and wait” in RvV and that some “gurus” said Pidcock should not “go with” Pogacar at MSR. And please understand I’m not talking about racing strategies— I’m calling out what seems to me like putting words in other people’s mouth in a dismissive fashion. However, it’s also possible he or she (or you) aren’t native English speakers and the clarity isn’t there.
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