Peiper questions van der Poel’s Tour pneumonia: "Mathieu was home a week later, did that play a role?"

Former sports director Allan Peiper discussed the most recent Tour de France in De Koffiestop-podcast, which also addressed the attack mentality of the current generation of top riders. "About six years ago, Mathieu attacked from far behind in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Everyone thought: wow, wow. But now people are used to seeing top riders doing that."

"Last year, Tadej was exhausted when he reached the finish of the World Championships. The question is: how good or bad is that for those riders?’, said Peiper, who draws a parallel between Van der Poel's racing and the pneumonia he contracted in the Tour. “Look, Mathieu rode brilliantly in that stage with Jonas Rickaert. He went for it 180 kilometers from the finish and was caught 500 meters from the finish.”

“But he probably rode the entire race with a heart rate of 180,” Peiper explains. “You can't tell me that's healthy. The question is: why? I can imagine that kind of effort puts even more strain on the body than pushing yourself to the limit once. How detrimental are those efforts? A week later, Mathieu was home. Did that play a role?”

Tadej Pogacar, who Peiper coached during his first Tour victory in 2020, repeated once again during his criterium in Komenda that he is “counting down the years until retirement.” “If Tadej doesn't enjoy it anymore, he'll stop. I sent him a few messages to ask if he was okay,” said the Aussie.

“A rider in his position is under enormous pressure. Everyone is always filming everything you do, and that can be taken out of context. If he were to pretend to be the nice guy, it would have shown. That's really who he is,” his former team manager said in the De Koffiestop podcast.

“But when you're standing in the cold air conditioning every day, when you keep arriving late at the hotel, when you have to talk to the press every day... After the finish at La Plagne, someone from the ASO bumped into him, and even then, when he was completely exhausted, he kept his emotional balance. But it took a lot of energy,” Peiper said.