Zonneveld on Van der Poel at Omloop: “It’s wizardry — it just can’t be done”

Thijs Zonneveld watched the crash in disbelief — and especially Van der Poel’s split-second manoeuvre. “It was basically impossible not to be on the ground there,” the analyst said on In De Waaier. “Pluimers’ helmet is practically right in front of Van der Poel — there was no way around it.”

Yet the Alpecin–Premier Tech rider stayed upright, something Zonneveld still finds hard to comprehend. “The fact he can still steer around Pluimers on wet cobbles… it really shouldn’t be possible. If you look at the angle of his bike — everyone would have crashed here,” he said, still astonished.

According to the former rider, rarely crashing is one of Van der Poel’s superpowers. “Van der Poel falls so rarely. He’s basically never sitting in the places where people go down — like Matthew Brennan and Arnaud De Lie were, for example. And then when someone does fall right in front of him, he can still get around it,” Zonneveld laughed.

The Dutch analyst sees something almost non-human in it. “It’s real wizardry. If 100 riders have to do that, 100 riders go face-first into the ground. It’s almost like he rides through Pluimers, like he isn’t even there. What that kid does can’t be explained by physics,” Zonneveld said, visibly impressed.

The acceleration afterwards was just as impressive, Zonneveld believes. “At the top of the Molenberg he’s already back on Florian Vermeersch’ wheel. As a rival, I’d get a bit demoralised by that.” But Zonneveld also feels the competition could have done more to actually beat Van der Poel.

“The wind sometimes wasn’t favourable, sure — but some teams can really look back at how they raced,” he said. “They only focused on the Molenberg. They made it far too easy for Van der Poel.”