Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert admit: “I wasted my best form there before San Remo”

The 2021 edition of Tirreno-Adriatico, also revisited in IDLProCycling.com’s earlier retrospective on that race, has gone down as one for the history books. Over seven days between the two seas, Van der Poel, Van Aert, world champion Julian Alaphilippe and Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar pushed each other to the limit.

Van der Poel won two stages that week, including a remarkable 60-kilometre solo effort. Van Aert took the sprint on the opening day and then won the closing time trial, while also mounting a serious bid for the overall classification. He eventually finished second in San Benedetto del Tronto, behind Pogačar.

As the spring unfolded, it became clear that both Van der Poel and Van Aert had already spent some of their best form during that punishing Italian week, made even harder by the weather. Milan-San Remo was won by Jasper Stuyven, while Kasper Asgreen went on to win both the E3 Saxo Classic and the Tour of Flanders. Van Aert did at least land Gent-Wevelgem, while Paris-Roubaix was postponed until October because of Covid.

Speaking to Sporza, Van der Poel looked back on that famous 2021 edition with no hesitation. “I wasted my best form there before San Remo,” he said in 2026. “It is a Tirreno that will always stay with me. Almost every day it was right on the limit. I felt really good there, unlike a week later. That San Remo may actually have been one of my worst days in terms of feeling.” The Dutchman had won Strade Bianche two weeks before that, but could only finish fifth in La Primavera.

“It is always a balancing act to hold on to your best shape for the spring,” Van der Poel said. “Not that you have to hold back all week, but back then we went full gas every single day. I’m a bit older now and I recover better from those efforts, but now we look at it day by day to see where the opportunities are.” That lines up with the way Van der Poel has raced this week in Tirreno-Adriatico, where he has already taken a stage win but also made clear he is building towards Milan-San Remo and the other Classics.

Van Aert feels the same way. On Wednesday, for example, he did not contest the bunch sprint won by Tobias Lund Andresen. Looking back at 2021, the Belgian said: “I was reasonably tired after that Tirreno in 2021. It was not necessarily the best preparation for the rest of the Classics season. It was beautiful to race like that, but I approach it differently now.”