“Not just me, but the whole peloton was strangled”: how ‘Poga constrictor’ left Van der Poel stuck at 650 watts

Van der Poel was alert when Pogačar and his final lieutenant, Florian Vermeersch, lit up the race on the Molenberg. “The race opened up pretty early and that situation actually suited me,” Van der Poel said afterwards. “It took away some of the stress of positioning. But in the end, the strongest rider won.”

It was a conclusion he repeated in several different ways after the finish. “Not just me, but the whole peloton was strangled,” he said. “Everything actually went quite well. The only shame was that I got boxed in a bit on the Kwaremont, and that cost me a lot of energy. In the end it was all about survival, but he was simply going too fast.”

That effort, especially the moment when Pogačar launched what proved to be the decisive acceleration on the Oude Kwaremont, cost Van der Poel more than he would have liked. “During the turns on the front, I felt that I still had to recover a little from the second passage of the Oude Kwaremont, where I started out of position because I got blocked,” he explained. “That took a lot out of me.”

So was it cramp, when Alpecin-Premier Tech team boss Christoph Roodhooft even briefly came alongside him? “Not really,” Van der Poel said. “Everyone was on the limit, and so was I. I tried everything I could.”

And what exactly was that limit for Van der Poel on the Kwaremont? “When I looked down, I was doing 650 watts,” he said of the moment Pogačar made his winning move. “I knew he wanted to drop me on that first steep section.”

“I had the feeling I came a bit closer afterwards, but then he accelerated again. And that was that. The problem is that there’s a phenomenon riding around out there, and I ran into him. That mix of enjoyment and suffering? It was mostly suffering, haha. Head down and just keep pedalling.”

Next Sunday, the leading men from Flanders will meet again on the cobbles of northern France at Paris-Roubaix. Van der Poel expects the gap to be smaller there, but he is under no illusions. “Normally, things are a little closer there,” he said. “But Tadej already showed last year that he can handle that race really well too.” Paris-Roubaix is indeed the next major cobbled Monument on the calendar.

“Am I still surprised by Tadej? No, because it’s not the first time,” Van der Poel concluded. “If he’s the strongest, then I have to accept that. I may be at my very best, but he is even better.”