Oh, I know exactly where to start…
1. These F’n Guys
This is an article about the legacy of Mathieu van der Poel. OK, not entirely, but can we step back and behold the wonder of … Alpecin-Deceuninck? The name alone is a sign of something big, which masks an even bigger story about a team that was (presumably happily) muddling through at the lower ranks of road cycling as a side project to its more profitable cyclocross exploits. Only in Belgium, I guess. But then this wonderful rider came along, an almost-Belgian from just over the border, with actual Dutch and French lineage and citizenship. And a motor like the sport has rarely ever seen. That one rider superpowered the Cross endeavor, until he decided his true destiny (or paycheck anyway) lay in road racing. So he went there and became an instant sensation on a far bigger scale.
But because he liked his environs, he decided not to switch to a fancier team, but rather to bring his current one along for the ride. That gamble has paid off in so many ways for all parties. That marvelous rider, van der Poel, has continued ticking off career goals, albeit within reason and not without competition, oh no, not at all. But it would be difficult to argue that his “small team” has held him back even a little.
And now that small team has transformed into a bigger team, and then a Grand Tour team, even a Tour de France team, and now they have a World Tour license. Until 2019 van der Poel had only dabbled in road racing (he had big MTB ambitions too), and the team had few other riders of note winning notable races. So this meteoric rise to the World Tour happened over a mere four full cycling seasons (if you can call the Covid years “full”). Now they not only line up with the biggest teams, they do so wearing the names of title sponsors who previously attached themselves to Peter Sagan and the Quick Step machine.
That is not an amusing little story. That’s a revolution.
Andrew P. Scott-USA TODAY Network
2. Couldn’t someone have just reminded him about the plank?
Everything about van der Poel’s career has been like a dream, but how much longer that will be the case is to be determined. And it’s still all because of that goddam crash in the Olympic mountain bike race when van der Poel tipped nose first off the rock feature because he forgot that the wood plank they leave in…
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