Mathieu van der Poel AFRAID of WOUT VAN AERT

Welcome to Beyond the Coverage, I'm Chris Horner. We're back to work here as we're one day away from Dorisdorf Landerin. Garrett's back from racing on Saturday and Sunday where he got himself a top 10 and a top 15. Did a little bit of cramping on on the Sunday race. Learned a valuable lesson going from 50 and 60 degree weather up here in Bend, Oregon to going down to San Diego, California where it's almost 100 degree weather when he's racing both on Saturday and Sunday. And of course paid for that race effort that he did on Saturday, paid for it on Sunday with cramping and the calf muscle that caused him to get a top 15 while he was in the front break up there. But with that in mind, he's back to work up here on Beyond the Coverage. So we have to talk about the weekend races. We have to talk about Volta, Catalonia. Jonas Vanega wins the general classification. Lenny Martinez second and Lipovitz from Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe finishes third. Now you guys might start asking the question up here. What happened to Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe? What happened to Remco Evnepoel, Jai Hindley and Lipovitz, the three dominant riders from Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe? How come they weren't capable of battling and putting a little bit more pressure on Jonas Vanega? Well, that's because when we get into stage five and I start covering that on the Friday race, Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, the team was complete knuckleheads. I mean, epically bad. Not only were they bad on the Friday stage five there, Volta, Catalonia battling against Jonas Vanega, but when I take you into E3 Saxo Bank, the exact same day at almost the same moment in time, we started looking at Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, their knuckleheads over there too. Okay, let's start looking at stage five real quick. Okay, we know about stage one where Remco Evnepoel comes into stage one. He came up short on stage one uphill finish. He had to jump from 425 meters to go. He did not follow Tom Pitcock long enough. He went over to the left. He ends up losing to a bike throw there on stage one. That cost him a stage victory. We go into stage three. I covered that on the Beyond the Coverage before Garrett took off, where Remco Evnepoel was certainly a knucklehead on stage three. He didn't let that split in the peloton work together in that first section of the peloton where they can gain time on some of the GC favorites like UAE Team Emirates Almeida that was in the second group. Instead, since he doesn't let that group work together and extend the gap between the two pelotons, he attacks too early. Jonas Vanegaard goes with him and rides remarkable there on stage three. Okay, we go into the first real mountain stages. Now, when you see stage five, and it's the night before and your Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, and you have three favorites. You have a Giro d'Italia winner. You have Remco Evnepoel, Volta Espana winner, and of course, you have Lipovic, who went third in the Tour de France last season. You got to understand that with a team like this, you should be able to put some serious pressure on Vismalisa bike. When you go over and look at Vismalisa bike, they don't have a stacked roster. They have Sepp Kuss backing up Jonas Vanegaard as the first lieutenant there, and Sepp Kuss form, whether if it's 100% or not, we don't know at this moment when we come into the first mountain stage. When you start looking at the rest of the team, though, we know there's not a bunch of Super Domestiques on this stage, and we know it's a climbing stage, so if you're Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, you want to make sure that Vismalisa bike is not in the front brake. Now, when the cameras come on, we know Vismalisa bike is in the front brake, so if you're sitting on the chest, you're watching this, and you're watching it like I am, at the moment you see Vismalisa bike in this front group, and Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe is pulling the peloton back there, you know for sure they have messed up tactically already. Now, this morning, I was watching two races, because I was watching E3 Saxo Bank, and then later flipped over to Catalonia, but I put it together quite quickly that Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe were knucklehead, not only here on this stage of Catalonia, the first mountain stage, but they were also knucklehead at E3 Saxo Bank, because at the same time that they're pulling at Catalonia, well we're coming into the Tannenberg at E3 Saxo Bank, and before Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, we're going to see Jasper Stuyvens attacking on the Tannenberg here, a piece of pseudo quick step, he jumped over of course from Liddell Trek, and he's the first real knucklehead at E3 Saxo Bank, as he's driving it up to Tannenberg, and like I always say, you never attack the strongest rider on the steepest, hardest climb of the race, and you certainly don't do it when the race is going full gas, if it's slowed down, there's always times when you can break big-time important rules, and Jasper Stuyvens at this moment, we see him attacking from pseudo quick step, trying to get the legendary Wolfpack's name back up there, high on the hierarchy there of the European Professional Peloton, Jasper Stuyvens, you are the first knucklehead at E3 Saxo Bank, there's no doubt about that, because you should not be attacking at this moment, at this place in time, but shortly after he gets done attacking, well we see Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe start to equalize out the knuckleheadism there from Catalonia at E3 Saxo Bank, because Tim Van Dyck's gonna throw in the move, oh Timmy, Timmy this is a mistake, if I take you back into Omloop for the butterfly effect, Timmy was in the front move there with Mathieu van der Poel and Florian Vermes, and Timmy was the one rider that I say was smart, he raced it tactically, because he sat on Mathieu van der Poel, Florian Vermes at Omloop was the knucklehead working with Mathieu van der Poel, that later got dropped to Mathieu van der Poel on Omloop now we're back in E3 Saxo Bank though, and we see Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe, Timmy Van Dyck is the knucklehead, he's attacking, Mathieu van der Poel goes, of course follows him up, those two guys start working, they catch the break, Mathieu van der Poel drops Tim Van Dyck, the knucklehead from Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe on the next big climb, as he went through the break, dropped all those guys, Mathieu van der Poel starts soloing the stage now, Mathieu van der Poel's got some of his own issues that he's got to talk about physically, because although he put on a show dropping everyone, we see at the finish he's got four riders behind him, and that's Florian Vermes, Per Strand is there, Stan DeWolf and Jonas Abrahamsen there, but with just about just over a kilometer to go, and they're just about ready to catch these four knuckleheads back off the gas, and we're only talking about a two second gap, maybe even a one second gap there to Mathieu van der Poel, Mathieu van der Poel sees the hesitation, throws in one more last dire effort to try to extend his gap, he does, because the four knuckleheads in the back play some games back there, Mathieu van der Poel goes on to win E3 Saxo Bank, while Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe certainly a knucklehead, now we jump back over to Catalonia, okay we see the Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe for sure a knucklehead there at E3 Saxo Bank with Timmy, but now we go over here to Catalonia first mountain stage, that the next knucklehead team is team Ineos, Ineos are driving it on the front guys, Ineos are driving it on here for Oscar only, it's Rodriguez at the front there pulling Carlos Rodriguez from team Ineos and it's Oscar only, and then we start seeing some attacks from the back of the peloton there, and Oscar only rides the front to try to close this gap, at this moment if you're Oscar only you are not supposed to be riding the front, Carlos Rodriguez you're a knucklehead because you're not supposed to be riding the front either, when we look at Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe and team Ineos on the first mountain stage here at Vuelta a Catalonia stage six, these teams catastrophically did tactical mistakes, Jonas Veningo ends up soloing the stage after he makes everybody pay for their tactical mistakes, and he solos the stage puts himself up in the race leader's jersey, now he goes on of course to win the next mountain stage and again Remco Evnepoel was the knucklehead on the final real summit mountain stage there at Catalonia, where he was pulling Lipovic around because he split it on going up over the penultimate climb down the descent he drilled it he got a little gap back there from riders like Felix Gall and such in the back, but he still has Lenny Martinez and Lipovic his teammate on on his wheel, so he's driving it at the front and they're just pulling Jonas Veningo up the final climb again, where of course Lipovic doesn't have the legs to stay with Jonas Veningo, Jonas Veningo goes up the road, now what really should have happened to avoid the possible wins there of Jonas Veningo, I cannot say that you could keep Jonas Veningo from winning those two mountain stages because he's the number two best rider in the world, first page rider, the only guy in front of him is Taddy Bogacar, but you can certainly make it harder on Jonas Veningo and Vince Melissa because they didn't come with a stack roster to look after Jonas Veningo properly through the mountain stages, but you don't need to when Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe is going to do it for you, so Remco Evnepoel you should never be pulling around Lipovic with Jonas Veningo sitting on his wheel at that moment, you should have used Jai Henley on the penultimate climb when we're talking about stage six and you talk about stage six and seven you take your pick, both of them are ridiculous tactics, but when we talk about stage seven the penultimate climb when Remco Evnepoel is driving it, you guys should have been tacking going up the penultimate climb with Jai Henley with Remco Evnepoel and at least trying to win the stages, you guys race for Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe, they want stage wins, they want general classification wins, they do not care about third on the podium, if I'm the director of sportif I wouldn't care and I know for sure Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe only want victories, they don't care about third, but Remco Evnepoel thought that pulling down a descent through the valley and up the final climb there might help out Lipovic, somehow they'll move up on the general classification for sure, but is he actually going to help them there with Jonas Veningo, there was plenty of opportunities for Remco Evnepoel and Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe to start attacking trying to win stages putting some pressure on the general classification along with those stage victory possibilities and instead all they did was pull the number two best rider in the world who lit them up on the two hard mountain stages there at Vuelta a Catalonia, now we take you into the final stage there at Vuelta a Catalonia when they're doing the circuits there in Barcelona and again Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe rode the same way, they try to make it difficult going up over the climb but they're never tacking at the right places in time to try to win the stage, they should have switched from general classification to winning stages and then hope something materializes in the back where Jonas Veningo has to get himself on the front and maybe Lipovic can find some kind of opportunity to attack on the final stage and maybe do something for general classification, but when you're racing against a rider like Jonas Veningo and he already has way over a minute lead on second and third place Lipovic, we know at that moment when coming into the final stage that Jonas Veningo can race the stage pretty tactically easy just look after the main general classification threats Lenny Martinez and of course Lipovic and everyone else he's got some time to play with so when you start seeing the attacks on the final stage Jonas Veningo did a fantastic job and Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe don't know how to race their bike, they don't know how to race at Vuelta a Catalonia and they don't know how to race on E3 Saxo Bank the same time when those stages matched up perfectly on the Friday races, now when we start looking going further and we started talking about Matthew Van Der Poel, we got to bring this up because of course Tour of Flanders is coming up, but tomorrow we have Duars or Vlaanderen, so when we go back and we look at middle Kyrgyzstan, in other words getting Welbegin, we know for sure that Matthew Van Der Poel and Wout van Aert are in a two-man break coming to the finish there of Welbegin, now at this moment if you're watching the race live and you see that Wout van Aert and Matthew Van Der Poel in the front group, you start looking at this expression of both the Belgian rider and the rider from the Netherlands there from Alpecin Primeratec and you can tell both these riders are not going a hundred percent, now what I see out of this immediately when I'm sitting on the Chesterfield is Matthew Van Der Poel's form has not changed since Omloop, in fact it's been pretty much level the whole time, so he went from Omloop, he went over to Trino Adriatico where he put on a show, went in two stages there, but but when you look at those two stage wins, he was always had company when you look at the final stage there at Trino Adriatico when he's splitting it on that eight kilometer climb, he has 25 riders on his wheel and Wout van Aert's one of those riders that jumped across going up that eight kilometer climb, now we go a little bit further in the Milan-San Remo, we know Matthew Van Der Poel got dropped by Tom Pitcock and by Tadej Pogacar on the Poggio, so we see immediately from Omloop, from Trino Adriatico, Milan-San Remo, that Matthew Van Der Poel's form and fitness is certainly high but it's not at his best, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten dropped from both Tom Pitcock and Tadej Pogacar, he would have looked a little bit more impressive on the final stage of Trino Adriatico without having 25 riders on his feet on his wheel, and then when we fast forward here into E3 Sachsenbank that I already talked about, well the four riders talking back there would not have come so close to where actually it had they not made that mistake they would have caught Matthew Van Der Poel with just over a kilometer to go, so now you fast forward into the next big Belgium semi-classic here and it's Wout van Aert and Matthew Van Der Poel, but Matthew Van Der Poel is holding something back, he's afraid to go to the finish against Wout van Aert, so much so that Florian Vermeesch from UAE Team Emirates, who also was a knucklehead because he was pulling with those guys before he got dropped when we're talking about the final climb to Kemmelberg, but when we start looking at after that, we see that Florian Vermeesch is holding that gap at about 13-15 seconds there for a significant amount of time, when was the last time you've seen two riders Wout van Aert and Matthew Van Der Poel being held by one rider behind, that tells you these two riders are certainly holding something back, and what I want to bring up about this is some will say well Matthew Van Der Poel was incredibly intelligent to know that he has Jasper Philipsen back there, I've said many times on the Butterfly Effect that Jasper Philipsen is always a card that Matthew Van Der Poel can play, but at this moment since we have never seen Matthew Van Der Poel really play that Jasper Philipsen card with the exception of course at Milan-San Remo when Jasper Philipsen won a couple seasons back, that card is rarely used by Matthew Van Der Poel because he believes he's a better rider than Wout van Aert, so at this moment when he won't pull with Wout van Aert and later we know that he's not 100% recovered from E3 Sachsebeek and he says that's his excuse for why he didn't pull with Wout van Aert, I'll tell you at this moment Wout van Aert's form looks like it's always been going up, and at this moment when we're talking about getting Welbegem or Middlekirchen if you want to call it that, we see Wout van Aert has wised up tactically at the moment, okay this is a big moment in the big guy Wout van Aert's career at this moment because if I take you into stage four at Torino-Idratico when we're coming into that small reduced sprint at the finish there at Torino-Idratico, Wout makes big time mistakes of sticking his neck too far out there when he of course when he chases the rider from UAE Team Emirates, Jan Christian switches over and chases the rider from Team Ineos, that's Felipe Ogana there that he's chasing, once he goes and does the second attack there to follow Felipe Ogana, he has made it so it's impossible for him to win and he makes it impossible for Felipe Ogana to win, but if you back it up to Jan Christian that's as far as any rider can stick their neck out there, now when we go forward here and we start looking at Welbegem, Wout knows that he doesn't have the option to make up and pull harder because Matthew van der Poel won't, if he does what happens he sticks his neck out on the line just like he did at Torino-Idratico and automatically he's going to lose the sprint, so Wout van Aert tactically you were masterful right here at Welbegem when you backed off and you just did even power there with Matthew van der Poel, now these riders of course we'll see Florian Vermes finally get caught from the group behind and when you look at the peloton this was a masterful day because this is exactly what I have told you guys for four seasons on the butterfly effect and beyond the coverage that they have to stay organized in the back, now they weren't magnificently organized in the back right away because Felipe Ogana was doing some work on the front and then eventually the other two teams like Decathlon, CMA, GCM they those guys did some finally got to work on the front and did their job and they had some help back there from other teams jumping in of course so they're able to bring back Wout van Aert and they're able to bring back Matthew van der Poel because Matthew van der Poel was backing off the throttle and was scared to go to the finish against the big guy Wout van Aert okay when we come into the finish we see Jasper Philipsen wins the race and Tobias Lund-Andersen does a fantastic job of getting second on the stage and Christophe Laporte third there at Veilbogel that means that Matthew van der Poel's guy wins the race with Jasper Philipsen and Wout van Aert's guy Christophe Laporte rounds out the podium up there so both riders did not have a reason it's certainly Wout van Aert if Matthew van der Poel is not going to back off Wout van Aert are not going to ride a hundred percent and backs off Wout van Aert has to back off too that's the only that's the only tactic he can play so the big guy Wout van Aert is making some marks here to show that tactically he's racing smarter coming into the main next set of major monuments when we're talking Tore Flanders and of course Perry Roubaix now of course when we look back there there's all kinds of different ways to see it some will say that Matthew van der Poel's playing some mind games on Wout van Aert I read that in some articles where they gave Matthew van der Poel the upper the upper benefit there of doing better than Wout van Aert I'll say it's the other way around because Matthew van der Poel's form has only held like this it's a high level like this but it's been flat throughout the start of the season from own loop all the way into Veilbogel versus Wout van Aert's form has gone oh he's getting better week in week in week in week in week out he's getting better and better at Milan San Remo he was fantastic Garrett can show you some videos where after when he crashed there with Tadej Pogacar just about six seven kilometers from the Cipressa Wout van Aert was the last to really leave of the favorites from that crash and still found his way to the front group that caught Matthew van der Poel and Wout van Aert still threw an attack at Milan San Remo finished out with a podium at Milan San Remo and now went toe-to-toe with Matthew van der Poel did not get dropped and was wise enough to not stick his neck out on the line guys like and subscribe beyond the covers the butterfly effect is always coming to you so make sure you hit that like and subscribe button hope you like my call up here of the weekend races there is a ton of knuckleheadism throughout all of the weekend races and it was epic knuckleheadism from Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe but Wout van Aert the big guy is looking like he's gotten some form that could be coming up to something near that 2022 Tour de France like form we could see the big guy back for Tour of Flanders and if not there Perry Roubaix we know the big guy Wout van Aert wants some redemption for the last few seasons so hit that like and subscribe button and I'll see you guys for the next video real soon