Already winner of Milan-San Remo three weeks ago, the Dutchman collected his second Monument of the season, Sunday, in Roubaix. He is having the best start to the season of his career.
Let’s betray the secret right away. “No, Mathieu is not an extraterrestrial, he is human”. We can believe Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), admirable second in Paris-Roubaix behind his teammate Mathieu van der Poel, Sunday April 9. But it is just as easy to imagine the disgust of Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), fifth, who had “nothing to do against Mathieu”. “He’s just above”, continued the Swiss in the mixed zone, to qualify the breathtaking victory of the Dutchman. Wout van Aert, his rival won in the final, was even clearer: “It’s impossible to take 25 seconds from a runner like Mathieu”.
Confirming the praise of the peloton, the interested party himself felt “very strong”, as if nothing could resist him. A similar impression had already emerged during his last major victory in mid-March over Milan-San Remo. Adding a fine second place in the Tour of Flanders, it is easy to understand why “MVDP” is thinking of achieving “the best season of classics” of his career, as he indicated at the microphone of France Télévisions after the race.
King of Flanders
The power and determination released when he mounts the saddle leave little room for doubt: Van der Poel is not satisfied. The symbolic significance of his repeated duels with the fantastic Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (Team Emirates) only fuels an intact hunger. The Belgian and the Slovenian were thus the only ones to frustrate the Dutch ogre in his Flandrian harvest, respectively on the E3 Grand Prix and on the Round.
But Sunday, Pogacar was not aligned and the poissard Van Aert could not hang the wheel of Van der Poel, undermined by a fatal puncture at the Carrefour de l’Arbre, fifteen kilometers from Roubaix. “It was definitely a defining moment.recognized the winner of the day. Without it, the race would have been different. We would probably have joined the velodrome together.”
Before this stroke of luck, MVDP had relied on a plan skilfully concocted by his Alpecin-Deceuninck training. The interested party did not fail to recognize the extent of the work done by his companions, including the amazing Jasper Philipsen, second at the finish after having guided the leading group: “I knew he liked the cobblestones, but to achieve what he did today, I was still surprised!”
Streamlined program
“Less Crazy-Crazy” than in the past, as former race winner Peter Van Petegem acknowledged on Sunday morning in The TeamVan der Poel acquired a maturity that we hardly knew about him. “I learned my lessons wellsmiled the first of the class. Last year, I was surprised by breaks at the start of the race.” Ninth in the 2022 edition, he then admitted, rinsed, not having “could follow to the end”.
This year, the model schoolboy, helped by a certain physical freshness, multiplied the attacks, forcing his pursuers to retreat. “He pushed me to my limits”, Van Aert confessed at a press conference. This energy is the result of a special diet practiced by the Dutchman. “I decided to run fewer races but to do them while always being at 100%”he explained in the mixed zone.
In this logic, he will not extend his appetite to the Ardennes classics. There would however be reason to imagine the former winner of the Amsterdam Gold Race (2019) representing himself there, as it would not seem incongruous to see him running behind a fourth different Monument on Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Instead, MVDP will perk up for a while, before tackling the Tour de France, with which it has a contrasting relationship (yellow jersey and winner of a stage in 2021, victim of an abandonment during the 11th stage in 2022).