Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock Eat Humble Pie After Liège-Bastogne-Liège
The post-race interviews at Liège-Bastogne-Liège this past Sunday offered up a few doses of humble pie from some of the Monument’s pre-race favorites.
“I know that if Pogačar has a good day, I cannot follow him,” said Alpeci-Deceuninck’s Mathieu van der Poel, who finished third on the day. “Not even with my best legs. Even with my best shape, it would be difficult to follow Tadej.”
Meanwhile, Tom Pidcock offered some well-deserved kudos to his INEOS Grenadiers teammate, Egan Bernal, saying “It’s so nice to see [Bernal] racing like this again. He’s had to go through more than I can imagine.”
Van der Poel’s comments came after a long day that saw UAE Team Emirates’ superstar Tadej Pogačar doing what MvdP normally does to his competition: launch long-range attacks that grind the entire peloton to dust behind him, leaving a group of the world’s fastest bike racers fighting for second place. According to Van der Poel, when Pogačar is in such form, it’s only himself who can stop the 25-year-old Slovenian.
“We also know that (Pogačar) can have a bad day,” Van der Poel added. “Or at least I hope he can have a bad day.”
After scoring huge wins at Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, and the E3 Saxo Classic, Van der Poel was seen as one of the big favorites in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, even if the undulating course didn’t quite suit the big Dutch superstar.
Van der Poel’s third-place finish surprised even himself. He spent most of the day mired in the pack and suffering up the parcours’ brutal grades. His hopes looked further dashed when he got stuck behind a wreck midway up a climb with some 100 km left to race.
“I’m happy because I didn’t think I would get a podium spot until about five kilometers to go,” van der Poel said. “It was a big, big effort. I was just going back to get my leg warmers and gloves. And then a crash happened. Then, the road was blocked. I thought we were never going to see the front race again, and I was happy that after a long pursuit, we came back, but I already felt that my legs were tired a bit.”
Pidcock’s day was hardly ideal. He was stuck behind the same crash as Van der Poel and spent much of the day using his energy to fight back to the chase group. He ultimately finished tenth overall in the same group that Van der Poel outsprinted for third place.
Meanwhile, Bernal showed guts and a lot of moxie, keeping the ever-charging Ben Healy of EF Education-EasyPost in check over the final few climbs of the day. After finishing on the podium in last month’s Volta a Catalunya and showing the kind of strength and grit he did on Sunday, it’s safe to say that Bernal might be fully back from the training crash that nearly killed him in early 2022.
“I feel good, my training numbers are really good. I've been training more,” Bernal said. “If we look at my numbers, I think I’m even better than before my crash; it’s just that other people are also better. That’s how it is. We have to improve every season to be with the best. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.”
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