{"id":58507,"date":"2025-08-10T05:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T05:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58507\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T05:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T05:54:08","slug":"you-cant-tell-me-thats-healthy-peiper-questions-attacking-style-of-van-der-poel-and-pogacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58507\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou can\u2019t tell me that\u2019s healthy\u201d \u2013 Peiper questions attacking style of Van der Poel and Pogacar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly a month has passed since Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> came
\nwithin metres of pulling off one of the Tour de France\u2019s most dramatic stage
\nwins. Alongside teammate Jonas Rickaert, the Dutchman spent 170 kilometres in a
\ntwo-man breakaway before striking out alone in the closing stages, only to be
\ncaught in the final metres by the peloton. Van der Poel had already claimed a
\nstage win earlier in the race and worn the yellow jersey, but pneumonia forced him
\nto abandon at the start of the third week.For Allan Peiper<\/a>, the ride was a spectacle, but also a
\nsymptom of how today\u2019s racing pushes riders to extremes. Speaking on DE
\nKoffiestop, Peiper recalled, “About six years ago, Mathieu attacked from
\nway out in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Everyone thought at the time: oh my gosh.
\nBut now it’s just common for top riders to do it. Last year, Tadej finished the
\nWorld Championship on his knees because of it. The question is: how good or bad
\nis that for those riders?”<\/p>\n

“Look, Mathieu rode fantastically in that stage with
\nJonas Rickaert. He attacked with 180 kilometers to go and was caught with five
\nhundred meters to go. But he probably rode the entire race at a heart rate of
\n180. You can’t tell me that’s healthy. The question is: why? I can imagine that
\nkind of exertion forces the body even more than pushing it to its limit once.
\nHow detrimental are those efforts? Mathieu went home a week later. Did that
\nplay a role?”<\/p>\n


\nPeiper also pointed to the mental and emotional strain at
\nthe highest level. Citing Tadej Pogacar<\/a>\u2019s recent Tour, he echoed Tim Wellens\u2019
\nobservation that the final week had become more work than joy for the
\nSlovenian. “If Tadej doesn’t enjoy it anymore, he’ll quit,” Peiper
\nsaid, noting the constant scrutiny top riders face.<\/p>\n

“I exchanged a few messages with him to ask if he was
\nokay. A rider of his stature is under enormous pressure. Everyone’s always
\nfilming everything you do, and that can be taken out of context. If he were to
\npretend to be the nice guy, it would have come out already. That’s really who
\nhe is.”<\/p>\n

The demands extend beyond the racing itself. “When
\nyou’re standing in the cold air conditioning every day, when you arrive late at
\nthe hotel every time, when you have to speak to the press every day… After
\nthe finish in La Plagne, someone from the ASO bumps into him and even there,
\nwhen he’s completely exhausted, he keeps his emotional balance. But it took an
\nenormous amount of energy from him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly a month has passed since Mathieu van der Poel came within metres of pulling off one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-58507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}