{"id":533834,"date":"2026-04-16T09:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533834\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T09:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T09:26:09","slug":"the-motorbikes-formed-a-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/533834\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe motorbikes formed a wall…\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

What stood out was not just the effort, but the sudden shift in speed. \u201cThe motorbikes formed a wall for our group. We suddenly started riding 15 kilometres per hour faster, together with Pogacar and his team-mates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naesen does not deny the strength required to finish the job. \u201cAfter that, Pogi closed the gap himself,\u201d he says, but the conditions of the chase, in his view, were far from neutral. \u201cIt was incredible how they pulled us along with the motorbikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A race that wasn\u2019t working behind<\/p>\n

That moment came in a part of the race where cooperation had already broken down. Naesen found himself in a second peloton alongside Yves Lampaert, in a group that was struggling to organise any meaningful chase. \u201cHe was nervous about the cooperation, because there wasn\u2019t really any,\u201d Naesen said.<\/p>\n

With the race fragmenting and gaps opening, the arrival of Pogacar from behind was always going to change the dynamic. Naesen, however, felt that change was predictable. \u201cI said: \u2018Lampi, Eurosport, France 2\u2026 they\u2019ll bring us back in a minute.\u2019 And that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than just Pogacar<\/p>\n

Naesen\u2019s perspective is shaped by the fact he was present for multiple key moments in the race. \u201cI experienced Wout\u2019s puncture, I saw Pogacar\u2019s bad luck and comeback up close, and I was there again after Arenberg following Mathieu\u2019s delay,\u201d he said, referencing the misfortune that also hit Mathieu van der Poel.<\/p>\n

That wider context matters. Paris-Roubaix<\/a> is built on chaos, where bad luck is part of the equation for everyone. But Naesen\u2019s argument is that what followed Pogacar\u2019s puncture went beyond that usual unpredictability.\u201cThat\u2019s often race manipulation\u201d<\/p>\n

The role of race vehicles has long been debated within the sport, but Naesen\u2019s comments push that discussion into sharper territory. \u201cThat\u2019s often the case,\u201d he said when asked whether such situations amount to race manipulation.<\/p>\n

For him, the issue is not isolated to Roubaix. \u201cIf you look at the Poggio, when Pogacar and the others arrive with five or six seconds at the bottom\u2026 I think back to that image where ten motorbikes were riding twenty metres in front of him. That makes the difference between winning and losing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a view that reframes not just one moment, but a pattern.<\/p>\n

\"Tadej<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar at the 2026 Paris-Roubaix<\/p>\n

A performance and a question<\/p>\n

None of this erases what Pogacar did. To recover from a puncture, navigate the chaos of bike changes and still fight for victory requires a level that very few riders can reach. Naesen himself acknowledged that effort in what he saw up close. But his account introduces a second layer to the story, one that sits alongside the performance rather than replacing it.<\/p>\n

In a race decided by margins, the question is not just how Pogacar got back. It is how much the race itself helped him get there. And in Paris-Roubaix, that line is rarely as clear as it looks from the outside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What stood out was not just the effort, but the sudden shift in speed. \u201cThe motorbikes formed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,121022,110509,101,8782,12183,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-533834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-oliver-naesen","10":"tag-paris-roubaix","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tadej-pogacar","13":"tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533834","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=533834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}