We have seen Remco up against MVDP, Pog and WVA and he didn’t fare well.
This is the obvious way of thinking after the WC this year, but if we actually look at other results with these riders in the same race it’s not that clear at all if we look at head to head, and looking at head to head is very relevant when you say he didn’t fare well when facing these riders.
(just to be clear, I think that Pogacar overall is the best rider in the world, MVDP is clearly superior in races with short hills and Wout is better in races that ends with sprints, and of course all three are better than Remco on cobbles)
We can start with
Pogacar as he’s the number 1 in the world imo and I’m using the PCS head to head overview.
They have only 23 race days (+ Tirrenk GC) in common and Pogacar is 13-11.
Out of these 24 races 5 is ITTs and Remco is winning here 5-0. No surprise.
The only stage race they’ve done together is last year Tirreno which Pocagar won 7-1.
If we look at one day races (non TT) they’ve been in 12 races together and it’s 6-6. Interesting to point out that Remco has won 4 of these races (Sebastian 19+22, WC22 & LBL23), Pogacar has won 1 (Lombardia 21).
Pogacar clearly smashed Remco in Tirreno last and in the WC this year and I can totally understand that this is moments that are easy to remember and therefore natural to color the views of the difference between them.
Then we can jump to
Mathieu and this is pretty quick. They have only 11 race days in common + Algarve GC and the results show 8-4 to Remco, but 6-0 of these comes from Algarve 2020 that Remco won and Mathieu just used as training.
The other 2-4 is the non-relevant Danilth Noekere Koerse 2019 (Remco 57, Mathieu DNF) and WC 22 for Remco, while Mathieu has WC 2019, 2021 and 2023 + the Lombardia where Remco crashed.
Conclusion: they are basically never racing against each other and they both won at WC title when the other were not relevant in the race when it got decided.
Then we can take
WVA.
They have 20 race days in common + Suisse GC and Remco is up 11-10.
Tour de Suisse this year count for 7-1 in favor of Remco, no surprise as he rode for GC and Wout was training for the Tour.
What is interesting is that until the end of 2021 season Wout beat Remco every time they faced each other and he was up 7-0 by the end of WC 2021.
If we look at the seasons of 22 and 23 and remove Tour de Suisse they have faced each other in 4 one day races and 2 one of ITTs, and Remco is up 4-2 in these 6 races. More interesting is that Remco won these four races (LBL22, WC22, NC23 and WC ITT23) while Wout won the NC ITT23 and was second in the WC23.
In the 13 one day races and championships ITTs they’ve ridden together and only look at race wins they have 7 in total. Remco have 2 WC Jersey, a monument and a NC jersey. Wout has 3 NC jerseys.
Given the actual head to head I think Remco have been doing pretty well. Pogacar has a better head to head, Remco and Mathieu have a basically non-existent head to head and Remco have a clearly better head to head versus Wout in the two last seasons and a pretty even over the whole career.
And all 4 of them have only races 3 races together, the WCs of 21, 22 and 23. Result is 1 rainbow jersey for Remco, 1 for Mathieu, 1 Silver for Wout and 1 bronze for Pogacar. So basically we have a way too small sample size to say that Remco don’t fare well against Pogacar, Mathieu and especially Wout (one can here make a joke about Wout once again being mentioned in the category of Pogacar and Mathieu when it’s not deserved).
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