Van der Poel gave Naesen confidential information during the race: “Then I’m not telling my teammates either”

When Van der Poel made his move and Van Aert was able to follow, plenty of riders probably thought the race was over. In the end, however, the pair were brought back, after which Jasper Philipsen won the sprint for Alpecin-Premier Tech. Van der Poel already did not seem to be fully committing on the front and admitted as much afterwards. A sprint had been the plan anyway, and more than a few people were aware of that. Naesen included.

“I’d received a little bit of inside information from Mathieu on the Plugstreets,” the Belgian began in the HLN Wielerpodcast. That came after Naesen had done a lot of work on the front. “I’d taken quite a bit of wind in that positioning battle for Tobi [Tobias Lund Andresen]. So we go into it, and Wout is on my left, Mathieu is on my right.”

“Then you know you’re well positioned,” the experienced Decathlon rider realised at that moment. What followed was a request to Van der Poel. “I looked to my right and said: ‘Mathieu, it would suit me well if you didn’t attack immediately, because I’ve just spent quite a bit in the wind.’”

The reply from the former world champion was remarkably calm. “He said to me: ‘No stress, we want to sprint. Just follow, and we’ll get a sprint.’ It was really quite special that he said that to me so matter-of-factly. That strategy must almost have been fixed already, if they were playing the Philipsen card before the start.”

Van der Poel did eventually go, together with Wout van Aert, but the pair were still caught. So it did become a sprint — but didn’t the Decathlon team already know that? “He said to me: ‘It is privileged information.’ So okay, then I’m not telling my teammates either. I don’t do that. I’ll keep it for the podcast, of course,” Naesen concluded with a laugh.