Tom Dumoulin pinpoints crucial moment: “That was the extra effort Van der Poel had to make”

On the run-in to that second passage, Van der Poel found himself boxed in slightly, as he explained afterwards. That meant he had to come around several riders in order to respond when Pogačar accelerated.

“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,” Van der Poel said after the race. “That took a lot out of me.”

Dumoulin addressed the same moment in his analysis for NOS. “When Pogačar went, Van der Poel was stuck behind Gianni Vermeersch. He opened a gap, which meant Mathieu couldn’t get past immediately. He had to check his effort and then make a huge acceleration.”

“If you then still have to close three, four or five seconds, that is exactly the kind of extra effort you are forced to make while the pace is already flat out. That may just have cost him that tiny bit of contact he was missing in the finale,” the former rider explained.

“Even with that extra effort, I still wanted to see it play out. Van der Poel was riding with confidence and he looked strong. I was really up for that duel,” Dumoulin continued.

According to the Dutch analyst, it had already been building towards that decisive moment on the final Kwaremont. “Shortly beforehand, he had already called towards the team car that he had cramp. I suspect, and I think, that Pogačar was just a little bit too strong for Mathieu. He came very close, but in the end there was one rider who was simply the strongest.”