Lance Armstrong saw a frustrated Van der Poel win Tour de France stage 9: 'And then he snaps'

When the going gets tough, the best riders rise to the top. You saw that again on Sunday during the ninth stage of the Tour de France through the Massif Central, where Mathieu van der Poel dominated the grueling transition stage. It wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter—or was the fast pace set by UAE Emirates-XRG actually a gift for Van der Poel?

On the THEMOVE podcast, Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, and Bradley Wiggins share their thoughts on the stage. “I think he’d probably already circled this stage in red, knowing how good he is as a rider… this stage was a perfect fit for him. But man, what a grueling, grueling day,” said Hincapie.

The former classics specialist is impressed by how Van der Poel handled it. “He was so calm all day. The gap was only one minute, which is basically nothing. But he kept his cool, attacked on that final climb, whittled down the group, and rode with tons of confidence. He was just sitting there at the front with a few kilometers to go, as if to say, ‘Does anyone want to try to get around the outside, or are we going to wait until I start sprinting?’"

According to Hincapie, the fact that teams like Netcompany INEOS and UAE Emirates-XRG were riding so hard behind them actually worked very much to Van der Poel’s advantage. “Suppose that leading group had stayed together and had a bigger lead—say, 3 to 4 minutes—then you would have seen Van der Poel attack that group because they knew he was the fastest rider. They had to shake him off.”

UAE Emirates-XRG rode for the team classification, since two riders from Lidl-Trek were at the front. As a result, other teams also remained in contention for the stage win, and the race was competitive all day long. “The fact that the gap was only 40 seconds meant they all had to keep riding until the very end. That played perfectly into Van der Poel’s hands, because he still had some energy left,” the American explains.

Armstrong noticed that Mathieu van der Poel was doing “Mathieu van der Poel things.” “I had the feeling—and it’s been widely reported in the media, with some videos circulating—that Jasper Philipsen was frustrated, the team was frustrated, and you have to assume that Van der Poel was also frustrated by all those lead-outs. And then he snaps and says, ‘You know what, guys, I’ll take care of this.’”

Right from the opening stages of the race, the American could tell that Van der Poel was on a mission. “Mads Pedersen takes the sprint, Van der Poel attacks—boom—immediately after that sprint point. After that, he basically had to keep attacking for the next 60 kilometers to break away. And they never really managed to open up a big gap, so they had to keep pushing. It was a truly brutal, brutal day, with a brutal winner.”