When the defending champion crashes hard three days before the race, you don't usually expect his team to win, but Alpecin-Deceuninck missed that memo on Saturday at Milan-San Remo. Even as a pained Jasper Philipsen went out the back of the peloton at the foot of the Cipressa, Mathieu van der Poel was revving his engine, preparing for whatever Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) would throw at him.
Half an hour later, Van der Poel sailed across the finish line on the Via Roma for a historic victory, becoming the first former winner to win again at Milan-San Remo since Óscar Freire took his third in 2010. More than that, Van der Poel led Alpecin-Deceuninck to the first team "three-peat" in more than 50 years. The last team to achieve such a feat? The Molteni squad, led by Michele Dancelli in 1970 and then none other than Eddy Merckx in 1971 and 1972.
When observers talk about "super teams" in the sport today, in an era where team budgets dramatically eclipse the norms of even just a decade ago, they usually refer to squads like UAE, Visma-Lease a Bike, and the Ineos Grenadiers, organizations with massive payrolls and long lists of historical achievements. Alpecin-Deceuninck, on the other hand, was not even a WorldTeam until 2023, but the squad has now won four of the last six Monuments.
Van der Poel's finish line reaction and subsequent comments made it clear how much this latest San Remo victory meant to him and his squad.
"It was pretty emotional after the finish because the race was so hard," he said. "It's difficult to believe I won another Monument. It keeps going for me and for the team. But it's not something we should take for granted."
Van der Poel's ride on Saturday was just the latest piece of evidence that he is not a rider to take things for granted. He and his team do not rest on their laurels or get complacent. For one thing, even on the heels of winning both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix last year, Van der Poel is clearly in the shape of his life this season at age 30.
"I think this is one of my best moments of form ever," he said after his win. "I trained more than ever this winter and realized I can manage the training load."
What's more, he showed the same kind of adaptability out on the road that he has displayed throughout the past few seasons of Alpecin's rise. Few, if any, other riders in the pro peloton are standard bearers for their teams the way Van der Poel is for Alpecin, which is as much his squad as it is the squad of team bosses Christoph and Philip Roodhooft.
Van der Poel is whatever Alpecin needs him to be, working with his teammates to achieve whatever the goal may be, however it is best achieved. Of the four Monuments the team has won since the start of 2024, Van der Poel has won three himself, while playing a key role setting up Philipsen in the other (and also serving as an ace lead-out man for Philipsen in the Tour de France). On Saturday, what his team needed was for him to be the protagonist again. He delivered, all while adapting to the challenges Pogačar kept throwing at him on the road.
With Philipsen off his game after his crash at Nokere Koerse, Alpecin was confident in going all-in for Van der Poel at San Remo. Silvan Dillier was the all-star lieutenant on this occasion, doing unimpeachable work setting the pace at the front for what seemed like several hours, and Van der Poel was perfectly placed even as UAE telegraphed the move that Pogačar was about to make on the Cipressa. When the Slovenian wunderkind eventually launched that move, only Van der Poel and Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) could follow. On the next climb, the Poggio, Pogačar launched one haymaker after another, but Van der Poel kept his cool.
Indeed, he rarely even looked under pressure, evincing calm even as the rider who just won Strade Bianche by more than a minute even after crashing tried his hardest to drop him.
Pogačar's best efforts on the Poggio came to nothing, except to briefly distance Ganna, and Van der Poel even had the confidence to try an attack of his own near the top of the climb. Pogačar survived the move but it was a rare example of a rival showing such audacity. Van der Poel's cool confidence was on display again a few minutes later when he launched his sprint from 300 meters out, defying conventional wisdom to catch his competitors off guard.
The move worked to perfection, and Van der Poel thus sealed the deal on an achievement unparalleled in the last 50 years.
Had he faced down Pogačar with the same kind of trepidation that leads countless others to settle for second without even putting up a fight, things might have been different on Saturday, but Van der Poel trusted in his strength. He was unflappable, and Alpecin was rewarded with yet another big win – and it's still only March.
In two weeks, Van der Poel will attempt at title defense at the Tour of Flanders, where Pogačar will again be a top rival. The week after that, Paris-Roubaix beckons.
In both races, Philipsen should be fitter than he was for San Remo, and Alpecin can rely on the likes of Dillier and Gianni Vermeersch to play their roles as well. They may not have the name recognition of higher-profile lieutenants at other squads, squads that frequently make big off-season splashes on the transfer market even as Alpecin keeps things relatively quiet, but there's no denying that their formula works.
Just two years into Alpecin's time in the top division, the squad has a real shot at taking five of the last seven or even six of the last eight Monument Classics, and that is mostly thanks to the superstar who constantly meets the moment, neither shying away from the challenges of taking on the sport's best rider, nor being so confident that he can't shed a tear or two after triumphing on the Via Roma.
Did we do a good job with this story?
