Four-tenths of a second. That’s all that separated Mathieu van der Poel and victory in the time trial at the recent Tour de Suisse. And his disappointment was there for all to see.
When you think of Van der Poel, you do not think of a time triallist. You think of a Classics powerhouse, a deadly finisher, an off-road star.
But the Dutchman has quietly amassed a pretty impressive palmarès in the race against the clock, and it begs the question, what could he achieve if he truly set his mind to it? His next opportunity is on stage 16 of the Tour de France.
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“Does it have to be a lot better?” was the response from Christoph Roodhooft when Cyclingnews put this to the Alpecin-Premier Tech manager, though he did answer his own question in a way.
“He could win one. That’s the goal maybe one day, to win a time trial at least one time in his career. That’s maybe something, hey?
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“When we saw the disappointment when he did not win against Tadej. It was so close. He said afterwards, ‘To have won a TT on that level would have been quite something’.”
Van der Poel’s time trialling potential was apparent since his early years but it announced itself most strikingly at the 2021 Tour de France, when he placed fifth in the early 27km TT, ahead of the soon-to-be Olympic champion Primož Roglič.
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The following year he had another fifth place in the Tour as well as a brace of podiums against the clock to bookend the Giro d’Italia. There has been limited impact since then, but this year’s Suisse time trial, on a sporting course and in a strong field (which also counted former world champ Tobias Foss), represented a major step forward.
“Because of the team time trial at the start of the Tour de France, he was training more on the TT bike and that’s where he got the feeling back, of how to be on the bike,” Roodhooft explained.
“The main issue was keeping his position actually. The position was already there, but he was never really on the TT bike, so he was not used to it. He spent seven or eight hours on it at our training camp. We did a few times some tests and again some tests in the tunnel in England.
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“And because of working on it, he finds some motivation for it. It more or less came organically.”
As such, Van der Poel gave the Suisse time trial as good a crack as he could muster. But it still raises the question, what if he spent even more time on his time trial machine, and what if he and his team could really find the time and resource to honing in on every last detail of this game of fine margins?
“He is in the upper level of cyclists, he has the power and the physical dimension. But of course he’s big, he has wide shoulders, and he will never be as aero as some others,” Roodhooft reasoned.
“But since aero is more and more important in the last years – also when you’re alone in Classics – you always have to be focused because the one in front or one behind you, when they are focusing on it, is easily doing better than you are when you’re not concentrating on aero.”
Asked whether Van der Poel enjoys the time trial process, which is not too dissimilar from a long-range Classics solo, Roodhooft was emphatic: “He loves it.”
And so to the question of today’s Tour de France time trial. Will Van der Poel give it a crack, and can he be considered a contender?
The ITT contains a 9.7km second-category climb, which is far from ideal for a heavier rider, but has only 4.3% in average gradient, and the descent is a technical one where Van der Poel’s bike-handling prowess would come into its own. With the world champion Remco Evenepoel here, and Pogačar riding for overall victory, it’s a stretch to envisage Van der Poel winning, but he could be up there – the question is whether he wants to be.
“When you have guys here pedaling for GC, and when Mathieu has other opportunities…” said Roodhooft, playing down the prospect of a Van der Poel tilt at Tuesday’s TT.
“In Suisse we had nothing to lose and it was a mountain stage the day after so the approach was different. It was a good moment to try it there but it’s maybe not a good moment to try it here. There is a bit difficult because we have other days behind the TT that are maybe more important for him. There will be better moments.”
So it may not be today, but as Roodhooft says, don’t be surprised if Van der Poel finishes his storied career with a big TT win in the bag.
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