Van der Poel bows to Pogacar and confirms that he will race the Gravel World Championship

“For me, it's perfect when the best ends up as World Champion. He is the best cyclist of the moment so it's good that he is the one wearing the rainbow jersey”. With these words, Mathieu van der Poel acknowledged Tadej Pogacar's superiority after the Slovenian's exhibition at the 2024 Zurich World Championships. Now, his mind will focus on the only race left this season, the Gravel World Championships in Flanders where he will try, as always, to win the title.

Mathieu van der Poel rules out participating in Il Lombardia despite rumors

Although Mathieu van der Poel is a cyclist accustomed to pulling off those kinds of crazy moves, what we witnessed at the 2024 Zurich World Championships yesterday was too much even for him. In the press room, he could only smile and tip his hat to the madness that Tadej Pogacar had just pulled off with his 100-kilometer breakaway.

Van der Poel, who had made an extra effort to try to retain the world champion title, even losing weight to have a chance against climbers on the tough course of the 2024 Zurich World Championships, finally managed to conquer a bronze medal that the Dutchman knows how to appreciate properly. “I had one of my best days ever and I can only feel very happy. There was only one rider out of reach, if you take him out, I was almost fighting for the world champion title. I think I can be very happy with the bronze medal”.

“I looked around and only saw climbers, but a one-day race is something different” commented Mathieu van der Poel about the race, and then added that this outstanding performance in a race with so much elevation gain will not change his priorities for next year “my heart is in Flanders and Roubaix although I don't want to give up on trying Liege or Lombardia” leaving the door open to the possibility of conquering all 5 monuments.

However, it won't be this season when he tries to win Il Lombardia despite the rumors that had been circulating in the past few days when it was known that he had lost weight for the World Championships and could potentially use it to try to win this monument “I don't know where that information came from. I will only do gravel next weekend” referring to his participation in the specialty World Championships.

Regarding Tadej Pogacar's amazing performance at the World Championships, Mathieu van der Poel commented after the race “I told him he was crazy” while explaining the last lap “I think the smallest gap we had with him was 36 seconds and we thought he was running out of steam, but the next reference was 45 seconds so we realized he had accelerated again”.

In any case, it seems clear that, 100 kilometers from the finish, neither Mathieu van der Poel nor any of his rivals believed that the Slovenian's adventure could succeed “I thought he was throwing away his chances of being world champion. I'm pretty sure Tadej didn't plan to attack there, but the situation was not ideal for him and his team had lost control of the race. I think it was more of an attack to solve a moment of panic but he was so strong that he was able to make it work until the end”.