Straight through Flanders was anything but the usual preparation race for the Tour of Flanders, but due to the fall of Wout van Aert, among others, it was a key race this spring. Commentators Karl Vannieuwkerke and José De Cauwer also have to recover from it, but do not think that the battle for the Tour is suddenly over: “The racing will be different now.”
Karl: “Dwars door Vlaanderen 2024 was won by Matteo Jorgenson, but what will remain in mind is that Wout van Aert and Jasper Stuyven may have to draw a line through the Tour of Flanders and Mads Pedersen also had a heavy crash. Maybe we will take that especially: the misery instead of the joy of Jorgenson.”
José: “It’s Van Aert now, but there are already dozens of them on the sidelines with falls. On the one hand, we have to learn to live with that, but we must also try to avoid it.”
“I immediately receive messages from everywhere: ‘they have to get rid of those high rims, because that is dangerous’ and ‘they have to do this and that’… We do indeed have to keep thinking about it to limit the damage, but we will not stop the falls themselves. can never avoid.”
Karl: “Remco Evenepoel sent me a message: ‘What do we do with the descent towards La Redoute. That is 5 kilometers and a lot steeper downhill.'”
José: “The Nieuwe Kwaremont down is the same story. They also reach high speeds there. Shouldn’t you also take them out if there are still a lot of riders?”
“We won’t know now whether this was the right formula for Van Aert”
Karl: “Van Aert had gambled by focusing his entire spring on two races, the Ronde and Roubaix. What lessons should he now learn from this?”
José: “He absolutely wants to win those races. Forget ‘you don’t have to do anything’. He has already won those other races. He just wants to win the Ronde or Roubaix. Preferably both. Perhaps this was actually the best way to get to the start of to make it to the Tour. But we won’t know now. That’s what it seems like.”
“You’re not going to sit on that mountain for weeks at a time and leave everything behind and then end up in that crash. It was crying out of pain, but also because of the realization: it’s not true, isn’t it. And that realization was immediate .Maybe even while falling.”
Karl: “Once again about the risks that riders take. Very often the danger lurks in a small corner: one tap on a rear wheel, one moment of inattention.”
José: “In any case, it has nothing to do with steering skills. There were two cyclo-cross riders with Van Aert and Vermeersch. It was just a chain reaction.”
Mathieu van der Poel is even more favorite for the Tour of Flanders, but perhaps others are now on the list?
Joseph De Cauwer
Has the Tour already been completed? “The racing will be different”
Karl: “Is Van der Poel suddenly the only top favorite for the Tour? With Pedersen and Van Aert, there were two of his competitors. And I’m not even talking about Stuyven, who was doing very well.”
José: “For me he was already the biggest favorite, but the rest were still close. Mathieu was at least able to avoid the problems. And maybe there are others?”
“The course of the race could also be different. Otherwise we would be heading for a standard formula, with more control. The racing might be more open. Other riders now think: we’ll just try.”
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2024-03-27 19:24:00
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