It seems that Aert has some sort of “green light” within the team. In this case, for instance, “trust, I’ll win the sprint, relax.” And the Team Manager, Director, or whatever just agrees.
That’s kind of insane. You have three guys, and the team hasn’t been performing as expected. Just go for the victory; it doesn’t matter who. If by the very final giving Aert the win was possible, fine; if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter. The team would be celebrating a good, solid race and a win. Now, they are spending time regretting decisions and having meetings, and the morale is even lower.
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I feel like the Lantern Rogue podcast did a good job of addressing this.
It sounds like through the rest of the race he looked strong. It makes me excited for this weekend.
In the normal ideal world, yes.
But I kind of get why the team tried to go for the WVA victory. The guy is clearly not mentally where he have ben and they are tried to give him a victory and some confidence.
Let me be clear, it was a stupid risk by the team! They should have gone for the win instead of gamble with it. But I still have a tiny piece that can relate to why they tried what they did.
Indeed, I understand and agree. He seems like a good, hard-working guy. He needs a victory. But they played it so wrong that it was embarrassing.
They should’ve started a cat/mouse chase within 10k, and then Aert could go free, winning easily. Why leave for a sprint? No reason at all. That’s my criticism.
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I fully agree. That would be the right tactic.
I’m just sure that Visma did it to try to give WVA a confidence boost ahead of Ronde and Roubaix. Now it just made it worse though..
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I have zero objection to VLAB deciding that they were backing Wout for the win….moreover, I think it was the right call. Sometimes the leader is the leader and you back him 100%. After Wout’s crash last year in that race, and his struggles this year to find form, working for him made total sense.
What I do have a problem with was the tactics they used. THAT was their mistake. In the last 10k, they should have had a Wout sandwiched between Matteo and Benoot and whoever was the third rider should have been sitting up in every turn to gap Powless. Make him chase back on over and over again….wear him down, sap the strength from his legs. He would break eventually.
And the fact that they didn’t do that even in the last corner is just criminal…..it is one of the most basic tactics in sprinting - last guy in the team sits up in the final corner to create a gap that everyone else then has to burn time and energy to close.
They also could have sent off soft “dummy” attacks to force Powless to chase. Not moves designed to win, just to make him chase. If he doesn’t take the bait, you have the attacking rider slow slightly and the other two ride false tempo and slowly bring him back (again, this is with the goal of setting up a Wout win above everything else)
The strategy of backing Wout for the win was the right call, but the tactics used to achieve that strategy / goal was horrific.
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I went back and watched stannards win yesterday and this Powless victory seems slightly less impressive in comparison
Stannard was attacked again and again. Mistakes were made and quickstep should’ve won, but they did roll attacks. He was the strongest on the day
Powless was also likely the strongest in that group, never letting a gap open, cool and collected. But…visma didn’t even lose the wheel in the final turn, let alone doing it every time he was 4th wheel in the final 10km. They made no effort to dull his legs whatsoever
I’ll likely remember this one longer and better than stannards, but the tactics feel like the huge takeaway, which is a shame because Powless was a monster
I agree with @Power13 that backing your leader makes sense, although I’d have gone a bit further with attacks and been perfectly happy with any visma winner if I was driving the car
Semi related: one more sleep until Flanders!
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Beyond the Peloton does a fantastic dive into possible reasonings why Visma may have made the decisions that they did. Likely a not so popular take but very insightful.
More exciting than I expected 
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Pogacar has been hitting van der Poel since 55 km and can’t shake him.
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Visma still doing 
tactics
Should be an amazing last 18km
Did not expect to see MvdP to crack like that….he seemed to be able to match Pog stroke for stroke, until he just couldn’t. And then Wout seemed to look better than him.
Now for all the pundits to reverse their commentary from MdvP is the best racer back to Pog is the best racer right now. 
The reality, IMO, is that Pog has been the stronger of the two, but the profile of MSR simply didn’t suit his abilities. He was the stronger racer 2 weeks ago except for the sprint. de Ronde better suits his capabilities and he was able to wear MdvP down, bit by bit.
Pendulum swings back to MdvP next weekend, though….Wout’s form seems to be improving, so maybe he can play the Wild Card.
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Hoping for an epic Paris Roubaix. Will be interesting to see how Pedersen does. I actually think he should be counted as one of the favorites after today.
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I think he is certainly one of the favorites, but I wouldn’t rate him as THE favorite. That goes to MdvP, IMO.
MdvP is the 5 star favorite, Pog is 4.5, Wout and Mads at 4.
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Super impressed with the competition today. Seems like 2nd tier favorites are closer to the level of top tier. Very impressed with all the work WVA did today and tactics of Lidl as well as Mads performance.
Curious if Stuyvesant could have chased down Pog and if Mads could have beat him in the sprint. I’m assuming Stuyven had nothing left…
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I think that’s a common question about guys chasing down solo riders. I think the reality is there is a reason they were dropped by the one guy in the first place…they were gassed and he wasn’t. A bunch of broken riders aren’t going to catch a solo guy that still has gas left in the tank. As you pointed out, that was surely the case with Stuyven.
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Well this comment has certainly be answered with WVA’s form at Flanders…
Both MTB World Cups were amazing races!
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