2025 03 17 13 03 landscape Ahead of the opening Monument of the 2025 season at Milano-Sanremo on March 22nd, all eyes are on Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar . The last two World Championship road race winners headlined an all-star startlist, but if Van der Poel is to be able to compete with the current Rainbow Jersey, he will need to be at his very best according to Alpecin-Deceuninck boss Christoph Roodhooft .
"Mathieu wants to win and to win, you have to beat the strongest riders," says Roodhooft in conversation with Daniel Benson for his Substack . As mentioned though, in order against the very best of the modern day peloton – Pogacar – Van der Poel needs his very best legs according to his team boss. "Two years ago he wasn’t able to follow Pogacar on the Oude Kwaremont (in the Tour of Flanders, ed.), so to win, his form on that particular day has to be incredibly good." Read also
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Following his performances at Tirreno-Adriatico over the last week though, Roodhooft is confident that Van der Poel is getting somewhere close to the level required to mix it up with Pogacar. “The form is building in the right direction, that’s my feeling,” he assesses happily. “Because of the weather, some of those feelings were mixed, but that’s […]
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