Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar concluded their historic Spring Classics rivalry at Paris-Roubaix, where Van der Poel secured victory for a hat-trick. The duo were the first to podium at Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix in the same season. Van der Poel, victorious in both San Remo and Roubaix, plans to rest, skipping upcoming races while preparing for the Tour de France. He expressed his readiness for the challenge ahead, hoping for high-level performance at the Tour after a successful Classics campaign, despite battling an illness previously.
Victorious in San Remo and Roubaix, Van der Poel will take a break after another very successful Classics campaign, opting not to do the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège as he did last season.
The illness I had last week was not ideal of course. I felt that I was getting better and that my legs felt better too.
I hope to do a stage race again before the Tour this year. Hopefully, I will go to the Tour at the highest level.
They likely won't race each other again until the Tour de France. The pair dictated the racing at the first three Monuments of the year.
Collection
[
|
...
]