{"id":445215,"date":"2026-02-25T18:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445215\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:12:08","slug":"hes-often-reacting-but-van-der-poel-and-pogacar-make-the-race-tom-dumoulin-calls-for-wout-van-aert-to-show-real-courage-in-the-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/445215\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He’s often reacting, but Van der Poel\u00a0and Poga\u010dar make\u00a0the race’ \u2013 Tom Dumoulin calls for Wout van Aert to show ‘real courage’ in the Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Dumoulin has urged Wout van Aert<\/a> to take a leaf out of Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Poga\u010dar’s books, and race with “real courage” this Spring Classics<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

Dumoulin, the 2017 Giro d’Italia winner who retired in 2022, has just launched a new podcast<\/a> with the Netherlands’ national public service broadcaster NOS, alongside fellow former pro Michael Boogerd.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the first episode, there were plenty of season-previewing topics of conversation but what stood out were Dumoulin’s comments on Van Aert, his former teammate at Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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“When I look at his racing style as an analyst, I notice that he\u2019s often reacting. He responds to what\u2019s happening in the race. But Van der Poel makes the race \u2013 he attacks, he drops a bomb 100 kilometres from the finish.<\/p>\n

“More and more, that approach is proving to be a winning formula. Not just for Mathieu van der Poel, but also for Tadej Poga\u010dar. In fact, we\u2019re seeing that the riders who dare, who show real courage, are ultimately the ones who win races. Maybe it\u2019s time for Wout van Aert to start doing that too.”<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar<\/a> has made a routine of winning major Classics and World Championships with increasingly long-range solo exploits, while Van der Poel <\/a>has soloed to three straight Paris-Roubaix titles and the 2024 Tour of Flanders from distance. The latter two are the races Van Aert covets most but he’s yet to win them, while Van der Poel has won each three times.<\/p>\n

More broadly, Poga\u010dar has 10 Monument titles to his name and Van der Poel has racked up eight, but Van Aert is stuck on one \u2013 his 2020 Milan-San Remo<\/a> victory.<\/p>\n

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“In Paris-Roubaix \u2013 the Monument that suits him best \u2013 he definitely has a real chance. I think Tour of Flanders will be very difficult against a strong Van der Poel and Poga\u010dar,” Dumoulin argued.<\/p>\n

“But in Roubaix, his opportunities are there. The problem is, if he waits for Mathieu or Poga\u010dar to make the move, it could end up being another year of ‘so close, yet so far’.”<\/p>\n

Dumoulin suggested the pressure and expectation on his shoulders in Belgium has had a “paralysing” effect. “He\u2019s never bad, but maybe that consistency pushes him into a more reactive style of racing.”<\/p>\n

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However, he pointed out the final stage of last year’s Tour de France<\/a> as an example of a time where Van Aert showed exactly the attitude he’d like to see more of.<\/p>\n

In a revamped finale up and down the steep cobbled streets of Montmartre, Van Aert attacked from range and succeeded in dropping Poga\u010dar \u2013 a distinct rarity in the past few years \u2013 before soloing to victory on the Champs-Elys\u00e9es.<\/p>\n

“When nobody expected it on Montmartre, he just exploded and rode away. In that moment, it was truly all or nothing; either I drop Poga\u010dar now, or I end up with nothing,” Dumoulin explained.<\/p>\n

“If he can bring that same mindset to a race like Paris-Roubaix, I still think it\u2019s possible.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Dumoulin has urged Wout van Aert to take a leaf out of Mathieu van der Poel and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-445215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}