Van Aert’s Roubaix helper on pushing on after Pogačar puncture: “Roubaix is the only race where that is possible”

The 21-year-old Italian spent much of the spring racing alongside the team’s biggest names, earning himself a place on the start line in Compiègne. He eventually finished 93rd, and he is delighted with how the race unfolded. “Especially because in my first Roubaix we achieved a result we had been chasing for years,” he told Bici.Pro. “So I am really happy with how it went.”

“The initial plan was to make the race hard and isolate the favorites, particularly Pogačar and Van der Poel,” Mattio continued. But the chaos of Roubaix had other ideas. “On one of the first cobbled sectors, the third one, Van Aert punctured. That forced us to chase and adjust our plan of action. At that moment, I was at the front with Laporte, while Affini and Doull had stayed behind, and they were the ones who helped Wout get back.”

Van Aert was able to return, after which Tadej Pogačar punctured. At that point, there were still around twenty kilometers to go until the Arenberg Forest, perhaps the most crucial point of the race. Alpecin-Premier Tech and Visma | Lease a Bike then moved to the front, an action that sparked outrage among some fans — and riders like Mikkel Bjerg.

Mattio explained the situation from inside the race. He was one of the engines keeping the pace high at the head of the peloton. “There was a selection that thinned the group out quite a lot; there were only about forty riders left. Five of us from Visma were there, so everything was going well. When Pogačar punctured, Alpecin and I raised the pace, so that he and his teammates would have to use up energy.”

Caught in the act, you might normally say. But the Italian pushed back against that reading. “Roubaix is the only race where you can do that. If we had to wait for everyone who punctured, we would still be standing in the first sector. It is part of the game; even when Van Aert punctured, nobody waited for him. That is why I had to stay close to Wout the whole time. Because we have similar measurements, I could have given him my bike straight away.”