After the dust had settled on Mathieu van der Poel's dominant Omloop het Nieuwsblad victory last weekend, many looked at whether his race rivals could've done more to thwart the Dutchman from adding the Belgian Classic to his already vast palmarès.
Our Spring Classics columnist and nine-time Monument winner, Sean Kelly, was one of those voices, urging eventual runner-up Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) to have played it differently with the Alpecin-Premier Tech leader in the final stages of Saturday's race.
Writing in his member-exclusive Cyclingnews column on Monday, the Irishman described his initial reaction to Vermeersch cooperating with Van der Poel as others in the group sat on and failed to offer a turn.
"I was watching it, wondering, ‘Why is he riding that strongly with him?’ He was too generous, in my eyes," Kelly recalled.
He went on to cite Tiesj Benoot's recent comments about the formula for beating the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Van der Poel this spring, which starts with refusing to collaborate with them when the race begins to splinter.
Riding in Belgium, in the opening Classic of the season, the home support will have naturally emboldened Vermeersch's mindset, but that's where the rider and his team car should've looked at the bigger picture, argued Kelly.
"[The sports director] can give you that word in your ear to say okay, just take it easy, if you’re doing turns just do a very short turn, leave Mathieu to do the bulk of the work, maybe skip a turn here and there, and see if you can get over the Muur with him.'"
Should that situation have played out, then the seven-time Paris-Nice winner believes a sprint always offers up a chance for the underdog, regardless of how strong the main favourite is on the day.
"If you do manage to get over the Muur with Van der Poel, you go into the final with him, and then you never know what might happen," Kelly added, before addressing the theory that Vermeersch was happy to ride for a safe podium given he's out of contract at the end of the year.
"If you put [Van der Poel] under pressure, and he has to ride, and it’s suspense right to the very end [...] his market value would be a good bit higher than it is right now."
Subscribe to Cyclingnews to read more from Sean Kelly's Classics column, including his assessment of Van der Poel's early-season form, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney's tactical dilemma against Demi Vollering, and the alarming spate of crashes across the weekend, plus unlimited access to our unrivalled Spring Classics coverage and beyond. Find out more.
