When Mathieu van der Poel announced his spring race program earlier this year, the fact that Amstel Gold Race was definitely on his schedule, that Flèche Wallonne was definitely off it and that Liège-Bastogne-Liège was ‘definitely maybe’ didn’t feel irrelevant. But almost.
Truth be told, it was hard to look beyond the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader’s 2023 defence of two Monument titles at Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix, as well as his new opportunity to join the record holders in Flanders with a third win in five years. And there’s no doubt that even if Paris-Roubaix, rather than Liège, concluded the 2024 Classics season, memories of what Van der Poel has now managed to achieve in the last 10 days will endure long in cycling’s collective memory.
