Van Avermaet's take today on the Belgian World's performance seemed to wrap it all up. Folks trying too hard and blowing the chance.
CN: There has been a big fall-out over the Belgian performance. What do you make of it all?
GVA: The problem is we have a lot of media attention and pressure on the team in our home country. It was already too much from the week before the race, all the talk about who is doing what. It doesn’t benefit the atmosphere in the team. Sometimes, they analyse the Worlds too much in terms of what everyone did. In normal races if you don’t do anything for your leader, maybe nobody notices, but if you don’t do it in Worlds at the right moment, everyone over-analyses it.
Also, I have the feeling the riders wanted to overperform, to help too much, and that’s something that’s created in Belgium. The riders even wanted to ride too much for Wout [van Aert]. It wasn’t necessary, because it only puts extra pressure on him. In this case it didn’t help the Belgian team. This was on the whole team but it was also on Remco [Evenepoel], because of the Olympics where he wasn’t so good or didn’t help Wout.
At Worlds he wanted to help Wout, got over enthusiastic to start riding, and it didn’t help him or Wout to do a better performance. They had to be more calm. They started talking too much about Wout only, which I would also have done internally but not externally. I’d say ‘Jasper Stuyven can win also, Remco Evenepoel can go from far’, then on the inside it should be clear Wout is the only leader. Then the other teams would ride differently. If everyone knows your strategy, they can prepare for it.
Saying that, it was bad luck that Wout had a slightly lesser day. If he had one of his super days, tactics don’t matter so much and he can still win the race. It’s a lot of talking but it’s also the legs that decide the race.
CN: Van Aert and Stuyven have publicly criticized Evenepoel, as has Eddy Merckx. Is this fair?
GVA: He’s a big talent and you can’t underestimate being a top Belgian guy from the age of 18. The pressure and attention in Belgium doesn’t help a young guy at that point of his career. The only bit of the story I didn’t understand was how they discussed the roles, because if they say he should not ride, and he rode, that’s a bit strange. That’s black or white. I was not there in the meeting, so only the guys can say if it was like this, but it seems he got over-excited. He didn’t do anything really wrong, but it would have been much better if he could wait until the end to do this. It’s just a mistake of being young. He can do some great things, but he still has some things to learn, like tactics and reading the races. But it will come with the years.
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That's indeed a good way to put this situation into perspective. As Greg is, always calm and with his feet on the ground. Could there be more to it? Sure, but this evens out quite a lot.
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