Pogacar improves on worst result in unpredictable Québec, while van Aert left disappointed
CyclingSaturday, 13 September 2025 at 09:47
The GP Québec is not for everyone; it is not a predictable race on the calendar. With its local circuit over explosive hills, the top riders are always expected to be at the front, but it is often attackers, surprising punchers, or men with great autumn legs who win. Friday was no different, as Tadej Pogacar and Wout van Aert only played a role in the chase.
Pogacar has made the trip to Canada twice before. In 2022, he won the GP Montréal, which will be held on Sunday as the second race of a Canadian doubleheader, but he did not really shine in Québec, finishing in 24th place. Last year, he rode at full throttle, but it was Michael Matthews who stormed past him with a sprinting group. Pogacar finished seventh.
On Friday, the Slovenian world champion from UAE Team Emirates-XRG was again unable to win. Pogacar did accelerate, but that was from a peloton that was already in a beaten position. The winning group with Julian Alaphilippe was already ahead early in the race. Pogacar finished 29th, according to La Flamme Rouge, his worst result in a WorldTour classic since that 24th place in Québec in 2022.
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Van Aert disappointed with race in Québec
While Pogacar will be looking to redeem himself for the third time in Montréal on Sunday, something he managed to do in 2022 and 2024 with victories, Wout van Aert had undoubtedly set his sights on Friday in Québec. The Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike will need powerful legs to compete for the win on the more challenging course around Montréal, and those legs were still missing, he said honestly.
“We weren’t positioned well enough once the finale began,” Van Aert analysed to the media present, as recorded by Visma | Lease a Bike. “We couldn’t follow the counterattacks, and the chase never really got organized. The plan was for Tiesj and me to save something for the last lap. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out.”
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Van Aert didn't have the legs for the win
Van Aert finished fourth in Québec in 2022, but this time had to settle for fourteenth place in the day's results, in a large group 17 seconds behind winner Alaphilippe. “We had to react a bit too early to neutralize attacks. By the final ascent of the climb, we were no longer riding for the win but just for a place of honour.”
“There was definitely more possible today,” Van Aert concluded. But: "I also have to admit that I simply didn’t have the legs to win. I look back with mixed feelings."
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Latest Comments
- Roger Vlaeminck says Mads is not a good rider? Where is the headline saying you don't even have to be a good rider to win the World Road Championship says Roger Vlaeminck, who never won it!!? Perhaps his aging mind needs to think about what the heck he's saying.packfiller7103-09-2025
- Wow, there is so much criticism of the UAE XRG riders. Why so much criticism is being leveled solely at the riders is baffling. The UAE XRG management deserves a good amount of the criticism aimed at the team, as a whole. They have not managed the talent they have at all. They failed miserably to properly handle young Isaac del Toro on that penultimate day of the Giro. And they have not handled Juan Ayuso well either. If they didn't have Tadej Pogacar in their roster, we might not be talking about them as winners, at all. So many think that Ayuso has shown that he is not a "team" player at all. Does anybody think that he might be thinking about his own future at this point? That he might want to feel like the team has his back, when they load the pressure onto him? And Joao is not a team leader. That burden might be laid on him by the management, but they need to properly support that assignment, not make it a contentious situation, within the team. And then how management has conducted themselves throughout this parting of ways between themselves and Ayuso has been totally indiscreet. And yet people want to pile onto Ayuso when he tells the truth about the manner that this is all soap opera is developing. He wants out. He shouldn't be getting so much negative criticism for that. It's a situation that has soured. Yes he has a contract, but he is not the first, nor will he be the last that wants to get out of a relationship that just isn't working anymore. And DeCauwer seems to have very vague reasons for criticizing Almeida. He does realize that Jonas is the second best Grand Tour rider of this current generation, so it should be no shame that Joao is behind him in the standings. Riders are giving their all in an extremely difficult sport that stretches them, often beyond their limits. Now many are wanting to send them to Behavioral School as well? The criticism ought to mellow out, or it ought to simply be ignored, as nothing more than blah, blah, blah, not worth the headlines it gets
reemmo002-09-2025 - In 5yrs, Pogi will be a top Twitch streamer living on baked goods while Urska is still racing.Veganpotter11-08-2025
- All they learned is that at the end of a 3 week race, Wout can beat him on a slightly bumpy stage. Obviously, this is very much thanks to Wout not racing for GC every day. This doesn't teach them a thing for Jonas beating Pogi. Not saying Jonas will never beat him again. But this absolutely won't have anything to do with it if he does beat him.Veganpotter28-07-2025
- Well, he eventually Pogacar pays the price for his insane spring campaign which was really crazyRosenkohl196125-07-2025
- Maybe I was a bit disrespectful to Heiden. What he did was unique and exceptional but he wasn't the only one who combined those distances, nowadays it is just not possible and nobody competes in both distances. The same is true for cycling with for example the combination of Roubaix and de Tour de France. In Merckx era there were more riders who managed a top10 in both races than currently.Joostmehrtens19-06-2025
- Two old men shouting at pigeons in the park…JonS16-06-2025
- Out of touch old men hankering after their youth through rose tinted spectacles, their arrogance almost outshines their irrelevance. Turn the volume down, this modern stuff just isn't music like we used to sing...johnny20whales16-06-2025
- In talking speed skating, the days when Heiden did that, nobody else did that. And Eddy couldn't do the equivalent of the bike. His 200 on the velodrome was good, but not world competitive for gold. Heiden was in his own world on the ice, moreso than Eddy if we pretend Eric didn't have a very short career on the ice.Veganpotter16-06-2025
- They wouldn't have dropped HIM so easily.... the GOAT. They would have dropped the rest from that era easily thoughVeganpotter16-06-2025
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