‘There was only one way left to win it’ – Inside Van der Poel’s dramatic E3 Saxo Classic triumph

In the absence of Tadej Pogacar and Wout van Aert, Van der Poel lined up as the almost unbackable favourite for a third successive win in Harelbeke, but every advantage has its disadvantage in this game. If Van der Poel was to complete the hat-trick, Vermeersch reasoned, he would likely find himself all alone from a long way out.

“Everyone is beatable, but some riders a little less so than others,” Vermeersch told Sporza. “For Mathieu van der Poel, it works a bit to his disadvantage that he is really the clear favourite. Usually, he rides away with strong men after the Taaienberg, but perhaps he will be a bit alone now and there is still a long way to go…”

Even so, that seemed something close to fanciful thinking before the race got under way. Van der Poel himself arrived in the mixed zone shortly afterwards, toggling between Dutch, French and English as he rattled through the same questions about the state of his hand injury and his form after his crash at Milan-Sanremo last weekend.
Van der Poel was the main attraction on Friday, and that meant a rolling maul of photographers followed him through his stations of the mixed zone. One of their number stumbled and fell against the barrier as Van der Poel spoke.

“Valpartij,” he deadpanned, in the manner of race radio announcing a crash, before seamlessly returning to the interview at hand. In the moment, it seemed about as close as anyone would come to ruffling Van der Poel on Friday.

For most of the afternoon, it all ran according to the expected script. A rapid start meant that the race was always likely to become attritional from the Taaienberg with 80km still to race, and Van der Poel was quick to respond when Tim van Dijke (Red Bull) attacked on the climb. The Dutchman drove on the pace over the other side, and they quickly bridged up to a vaguely dangerous group of counter-attackers.

On the following Boigneberg, Van der Poel opted to strike out alone, powering clear of the group and setting out in lone pursuit of the day’s early break. Nothing about Van der Poel’s extraordinary career could be described as “normal,” of course, but this looked a lot like business as usual for the favourite.

After catching the early break before the Paterberg, Van der Poel inevitably burnt them off on the climb itself. By that juncture, with 42km still to race, Van der Poel had a minute or so in hand on the chasers, and Harelbeke looked set to witness a procession for the third straight year.

Even when a stout chasing group composed of Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Per Strand Hagenes (Visma | Lease a Bike), Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) formed behind Van der Poel, they looked to be racing for second place.

But then a curious thing began to happen. With each passing kilometre, the time gap in the top corner of the screen began to contract. After the Tiegemberg, there were suddenly shades of Fabian Cancellara at the 2011 Tour of Flanders, as seconds began to fall in clumps from Van der Poel’s lead.

Alpecin directeur sportif Christoph Roodhooft briefly drove alongside him to offer him gels, encouragement and as much shelter from the elements as decorum and the commissaires would allow.

“It was not specifically a nutrition problem, but yeah, he was out of energy for the simple reason that it was more than 60k of attacking,” Roodhooft’s brother and co-manager Philip told Domestique after the finish. “It was not an error in the feeding plan; it was just eating to get energy in the end.”

By the time Van der Poel entered the sinuous final kilometres through the housing estates on the outskirts of Harelbeke, his lead was down to single digits. Come the flamme rouge, Vermeersch et al were close enough to reach out and touch Van der Poel. His winning run at Harelbeke looked to be over.

And yet, and yet. The chasers gambled or hesitated or fumbled – take your pick – at the critical moment, and Van der Poel somehow kept enough forward momentum to reach Harelbeke in first place for the third year in a row. 

As Van der Poel crossed the line, he didn’t seem quite sure of how he had managed to pull it off, but his extreme state of fatigue might have helped. Knowing he would likely cramp up in a sprint, Van der Poel figured he had little option but to keep pushing on rather than sit up and wait for his pursuers. Every disadvantage has its advantage too.

“For Mathieu, there was only one way left to try to win it, and that was to continue pushing,” Philip Roodhooft said. “It was brilliant the way he seemed to resign and then immediately continue pushing again. And I think that was the moment where it turned in his favour again in the end.”

Van der Poel echoed that thought when he eventually reached the press room after the podium ceremonies and his duties in the mixed zone. 

“I thought if they come back now and it’s a sprint, for sure I’m last of the group, because I was on the limit,” Van der Poel said as reporters huddled around him in a corner of the press room. “I think they also thought I gave up and then I just tried one more time seated to go as fast as possible to the finish line.”

Between now and his imminent duel with Pogacar at the Tour of Flanders, there will be ample time to parse and analyse Van der Poel’s travails in the finale here. But perhaps it’s unwise to read too much into a race that is considerably shorter than the Ronde and where Van der Poel’s usual dance partner was absent.

That might have been the key factor here. As Gianni Vermeersch had predicted, Van der Poel found himself alone a long, long way from home, and he ended up paying for that effort. Even the so-called ‘aliens’ have to settle the tab on occasion.

“I saw that nobody was going to work, so I wanted to attack, to have one or two riders with me that would work with me,” Van der Poel said of his attack on the Boigneberg. “But then I was alone at the top and there was no way back…”

Every race has its own story, and the story of this one was how Van der Poel somehow found a way to will his way to a victory that looked to have slipped from his grasp. It wasn’t the procession we had anticipated, but it was all the more memorable for it.

“It’s again a special one,” Roodhooft said. “It’s difficult to say where it ranks. But I mean, it’s something we will for sure remember. That’s clear.”