{"id":515952,"date":"2026-03-03T12:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515952\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T12:23:09","slug":"you-dont-have-to-apologise-for-riding-with-the-god-of-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/515952\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou don\u2019t have to apologise for riding with the god of cycling\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oliver Naesen<\/a> crashed at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>, meaning he was unable to ride for a result himself \u2014 but he still watched his team shine across the Opening Weekend. That came despite Decathlon\u2013CMA CGM missing two key injured riders in Tiesj Benoot and Olav Kooij. The popular Belgian looked back on the weekend in the<\/p>\n

HLN Wielerpodcast<\/a>.Decathlon\u2013CMA CGM were somewhat surprisingly one of the strongest blocks over the weekend. Tobias Lund Andresen finished in the top ten twice, while in particular at Kuurne\u2013Brussels\u2013Kuurne<\/a>, the team\u2019s blue-and-green colours were repeatedly represented in attacks. Naesen himself was also very happy with both his own form and the way the team raced.\u201cWe got two top tens, and basically in every move we could say we had two or three riders there \u2014 this might be the strongest Decathlon team I\u2019ve ever ridden in,\u201d said the experienced Belgian. Still, the team didn\u2019t take a win. \u201cIn Omloop, I knew straight away that Mathieu (van der Poel, ed.) was going to win<\/a>,\u201d Naesen explained, before sharing a funny anecdote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got cut off by someone from Uno-X and shouted, \u2018Idiot!\u2019 at him. Then Mathieu comes alongside me, totally relaxed, and says: \u2018Maybe he\u2019s just like that, eh.\u2019 After that I said in my earpiece that Mathieu was going to win the race,\u201d Naesen laughed in the podcast. \u201cIf you\u2019re that relaxed while everyone around you is suffering, then you\u2019ve definitely got something left,\u201d he thought after hearing the Dutchman\u2019s remark. (Van der Poel went on to win in style in his Omloop debut.)<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"oliverNaesen: \u201cYou don\u2019t have to apologise for riding with the god of cycling\u201d<\/p>\n

Naesen also wanted to address the criticism that followed the way compatriot Florian Vermeersch raced. \u201cFlorian is a fantastic rider, but he\u2019s not going to win ten Classics. And if, after a podium, you have to apologise to the crowd because you rode with the god of cycling \u2014 that makes no sense!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Belgian continued: \u201cHe should just be proud of how he rode, and that he was able to stay in it for so long. If at the end of your career you can look back on a number of Classics podiums, you can be very satisfied.\u201d Naesen speaks from experience: during his career he has already stood on the podium in races including Gent\u2013Wevelgem, the E3 Saxo Classic and Milano\u2013Sanremo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oliver Naesen crashed at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, meaning he was unable to ride for a result himself \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,257964,77973,185104,231522,85],"class_list":["post-515952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-kuurne-brussels-kuurne","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-oliver-naesen","tag-omloop-het-nieuwsblad","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515952","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=515952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}