Thibau Nys 'fiddled with his outfit' in the Flèche Wallonne, finished eighth, but also knows: "I definitely didn't ride my best Wall of Huy"

Nys’s own camp is well aware of the 22-year-old Thibau’s strengths. “I know he can ride up the Mur de Huy very fast,” his father Sven Nys told Sporza with a laugh. “Of course, the competition knows they need to raise the pace early to tire him out in advance. Because bringing him to the base of the climb means trouble.”

Still, Sven Nys remains realistic. “It's really hard to assess his chances. It’s all new to him. In the Amstel, I saw that he’s in good shape and has made progress. But whether he’s ready to take on the very best in the world — I can’t say. It seems a bit too ambitious to think he can already control the race.”

Yet he doesn’t entirely rule out his talented son’s chances. “The numbers don’t lie. He has the qualities and the punch to pull off something special there, but there’s a whole race leading up to that as well. So the question is whether he’ll still have that little extra when it matters,” said Sven Nys.

That little bit extra that his father Sven mentioned was still missing in the legs of the 22-year-old Thibau. "I fiddled with my clothing all day," said Nys after the finish to the Belgian press. "First, I was too hot, then too cold. And that really affected my legs. I managed to get through it on the climbs, but I was shaking like a leaf on the descents."

On the penultimate Wall of Huy, Nys already sensed that it would be difficult to win. "On the penultimate climb, I felt my legs blocking when I had to push harder. That's no excuse because I think everyone felt that way today. Except maybe one person," Nys said with a smile, referring to winner Tadej Pogacar.

Overall, Nys looks back on his race with satisfaction. “Even though my final sprint didn't come off because of the cold,” he says disappointedly after the race. "The weather conditions had much more influence than the actual course or how hard we rode because that wasn't too bad. It was mainly cold."

At the start of the final climb, Nys still believed he could do it because the pace wasn't very high yet. "But as I said, in the lap before, I already felt that the cold was really in my legs when it got really fast. As a result, I lost a few places."

According to the Flemish rider, victory was out of reach anyway because Pogacar accelerated with power 400 meters from the finish. "I don't think I could have kept up with Pogacar, but I certainly didn't ride my best Wall of Huy,” Nys concluded. “But I'm definitely satisfied. I got the most out of it. In slightly different circumstances, I could have pushed a little harder in the final sprint, but that wasn't the case today."

This Sunday, Nys will compete in his third and final classic of the week: Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The rider himself is confident that he is in good shape. "Liège is the least favorable of the three for me, but I will do my best for the team. In any case, it's a nice introduction to the Ardennes classics."

In Liège, Nys will most likely be able to count on leader Matthias Skjelmose, who crashed in the Flèche Wallonne but later reported reassuring news.