MATHIEU AND ADRIE VAN DER POEL
http://www.grahamwatson.com/essays/2019/05/mathieu-and-adri-van-der-poel/ by GRAHAM WATSON - May 1, 2019 I didn’t really need to wait for the hilly Ardennes races to finish in order to say that Mathieu van der Poel’s victory in the Amstel Gold was the most exciting element of this spring classics’ season. Of course, I did wait, just in case, but as much as I enjoyed seeing the affable Jakob Fuglsang win Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and win it well, all it did was to leave me wondering what might have happened had Van der Poel’s Corendon-Circus team been invited to the race. The enormity of van der Poel’s lush win in the Amstel one week earlier, as well as his domineering performances throughout March and April, ensured that no matter who won in the Ardennes, they would only do so in the absence of the most exciting, emerging all-round talent in years. Van der Poel proved he could win on the cobbles of Flanders, and on the Brabant hills too, so why not in the hilliest classic of them all, La