{"id":514992,"date":"2026-03-03T01:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514992\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T01:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T01:47:08","slug":"you-dont-see-that-growth-as-quickly-with-todays-20-year-olds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/514992\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou don\u2019t see that growth as quickly with today\u2019s 20-year-olds\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> delivered <\/a>a perfect first impression at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>. In his debut at the Flemish Opening Weekend curtain-raiser, the 31-year-old Dutchman won immediately \u2014 and afterwards he explained what, in his view, underpins his strong 2026 condition. Speaking at the post-race press conference, with IDLProCycling.com, the Alpecin\u2013Premier Tech leader also looked back on the decisive moment on the Molenberg and the final move on the Muur van Geraardsbergen.The story of the race is now well known. Van der Poel avoided trouble at the Molenberg \u2014 somehow staying upright as riders hit the deck in front of him \u2014 then bridged up to Florian Vermeersch, before dropping everyone on the Muur to ride away to victory. It may have looked effortless on television, but Van der Poel insisted it felt anything but easy <\/a>in the conditions.<\/p>\n

Mathieu, did you enjoy your first Omloop?
\u201cYes, actually I did. Only the weather didn\u2019t really play along \u2014 I expected it to be better. Maybe I even benefited from it. We made a good clothing choice and in the end it became harder. Whether I\u2019ll come back, I don\u2019t know yet. Everything went perfectly this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy race, because it was seriously cold and tough. And there was a lot of stress \u2014 that takes its toll as well. But the feeling was good, so I\u2019m satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s at the root of this win?
\u201cWe train hard, but everyone does that. I really enjoy the process now, and as I\u2019ve got older I notice I can handle more. I can train more \u2014 and harder \u2014 and I really like doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re 31 now \u2014 are you at maximum capacity?
\u201cI think so, but it has also grown over the years. When I look at how much 19- or 20-year-old riders train now, it\u2019s completely different to what I did. The growth I\u2019ve experienced, you don\u2019t see that happening as quickly with them. If you\u2019re already training 30 hours a week as a junior, it\u2019s hard to keep developing. But they\u2019re already impressively good. It\u2019s not bad \u2014 it\u2019s just different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tell us what happened on the Molenberg.
\u201cHonestly, I have no idea. Maybe my cyclocross background still came in handy. I saw something happen and I just reacted. It wasn\u2019t the plan to go there already, but with the way the situation unfolded, I went for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pluimers was lucky you were right behind him.
\u201cI definitely did everything I could not to ride over his head. We did know it was wet there, and you do sort of take into account that something like that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the video<\/p>\n

You ended up on the road with Florian Vermeersch and Tim van Dijke \u2014 two guys you know. How was that?
\u201cI train with Tim more often, so I know him well. Florian I\u2019ve run into a few times in races: he beat me in that wet Roubaix sprint, and at the Gravel Worlds we were also up the road together. I know how strong he is, so I took him into account as well. Without him we wouldn\u2019t have made it to the finish, so I have a lot of respect for his ride.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s on the podium too, and people can forget that. He\u2019s rewarded with an Omloop podium for his performance and that really means something. If you don\u2019t want to race, you end up with absolutely nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the video<\/p>\n

Did it go the way you expected?
\u201cNot really, because I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d be away already on the Molenberg. We were aiming for an attack on the Muur, because before that the racing is on wider roads. But because of the circumstances, it happened earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody has ever won Omloop and the Tour of Flanders in the same year. How often did you think about that?
\u201cNot a single moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mathieu van der Poel delivered a perfect first impression at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. In his debut at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[221189,64,63,784,172195,77973,231522,85],"class_list":["post-514992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-alpecin-premier-tech","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-idl-productions","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-omloop-het-nieuwsblad","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}