'One of the hardest days I ever had on the bike' - Mathieu van der Poel falls short from breakaway at Dauphiné

It’s hardly original to note that bike races seem to be getting harder and faster in the 2020s, but when Mathieu van der Poel makes the observation, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. After placing fifth on stage 3 of the Critérium du Dauphiné, the man with eight Monument victories to his name ranked the effort among the most taxing of his career.

“It was one of the hardest days I ever had on the bike,” Van der Poel told reporters of his day in the breakaway through some rolling terrain. “I think we had a 45kph average and 3,000m altitude all day – that says enough, I think.”

Already third on the opening two days, Van der Poel was among the favourites for victory on stage 3, though it was a mild surprise that he opted to infiltrate the early move rather than play his hand in the finale. It proved a sage decision, even if the presence of dangerman Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) meant the escapees had to work harder than they would have anticipated to maintain their advantage into the finale.

“We thought the breakaway might have a chance today,” Van der Poel said. “And in the end, it had, although we didn’t get that much room because of Lipowitz, which was a bit of a pity.”

Van der Poel, of course, wasn’t given much room by his breakaway companions either. They were never likely to bring him to the finish line for a group sprint, and so the onus was on the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider to shut down attacks when the break’s unity began to splinter in the closing kilometres.

“Of course, a lot of riders were looking at me, but in the end, you need to look at the other riders if you want to win the stage as well,” Van der Poel said. “It’s not up to me to react to every single attack, so that was the gamble. In the end, I responded to several but not all of them.

“When I attacked, everybody responded, but that’s normal. I would have needed extraordinary legs to win solo. But I was good, and I enjoyed the stage today.”

Van der Poel placed fifth on the stage, 27 seconds down on solo winner Iván Romeo (Movistar), and he lies fifth overall, 29 seconds behind the Spaniard. He might yet have one more shot at a stage win on Thursday before the race moves into the high mountains, but Van der Poel declared himself satisfied with his condition on the Dauphiné as he builds towards the Tour de France.

Above all, Van der Poel will be pleased to have recovered so quickly from the fractured wrist he sustained in a crash at the Mountain Bike World Cup in Nove Mesto last month, and his performances on a range of terrains at the Dauphiné surely augur well for the Tour.

“Just in general, for the shape, it’s important to have hard days like this,” Van der Poel said. “It’s impossible to recreate them in training, so that’s why I’m here. 

“I was training in Spain recently, and it was hot there too, but if you go flat out all day like we did today, then that really hurts the legs. I would have been happier to have had a win here, but I’m happy with my form all the same.”