Alpecin-Deceuninck's debut season at WorldTour level has been a nondescript affair so far. Two months into the new year, the Belgian squad has yet to pick up a victory or even a podium place. A Jasper Philipsen crash at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne didn’t help, of course, but Opening Weekend seemed almost to pass them by.
And yet, manager Christoph Roodhooft evinced optimism in the pages of Het Laatste Nieuws on Thursday morning. "The world could look completely different within two weeks," he said.
Roodhooft knows that the outlook might be altogether brighter as soon as this Saturday, when the team's lodestar, Mathieu van der Poel, begins his road season at Strade Bianche. Few riders in the peloton can change a narrative as quickly as the Dutchman.
Take the cyclocross season just past. Van der Poel spent much of the winter struggling against a nagging back injury only to turn the previous logic of the campaign on its head by beating eternal rival Wout van Aert at the World Championships in Hoogerheide.
Twelve months ago, meanwhile, that same back injury had forced Van der Poel to miss most of the cyclocross season and condemned him to delay the start of his road campaign until Milan-San Remo. He set out that day seemingly more in hope than in expectation, only to finish third on Via Roma. Within a fortnight, he had won Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders, beating Tadej Pogačar to boot.
Despite being hampered by that seemingly chronic back injury over the winter, Van der Poel reportedly enjoyed a smooth run-in to the road season this time around. The injury, he noted in January, affected him more in his off-road endeavours.
"This will probably remain my Achilles heel," Van der Poel said. "Not on the road, I'm not afraid of that, but in cyclocross and maybe also in mountain biking."
In keeping with his team’s by-now habitual practice, the 28-year-old put the finishing touches to his preparation for the Classics with a two-week stint at the Syncrosfera hotel in Denia, availing of the facility’s atmosphere-controlled rooms to mimic the effects of sleeping at altitude.
"After the cyclocross Worlds, he took a holiday and then spent two weeks at altitude in Syncrosfera," Roodhooft told Het Laatste Nieuws. "He has been back since Sunday, and [on Thursday] we reconnoitre the route. Strade Bianche is a difficult race, but also quite predictable. No matter how strong the field is, the best will eventually ride at the front."
Van der Poel has raced Strade Bianche just twice in his career. After a low-key 15th place on his debut in the pandemic-delayed edition of 2020, he delivered a performance for the ages the following March, winning from a high-class break that included Van Aert, Tadej Pogačar and Tom Pidcock.
Julian Alaphilippe was the last man standing, but even his considerable resistance wilted under the sheer venom of Van der Poel's acceleration on the final climb of the Via Santa Caterina. Few riders, if any, can reach the same high notes as Van der Poel when he is in full song.
The question for Saturday, of course, is whether Van der Poel can replicate that stratospheric performance in his first race of the road season, where gravel world champion Gianni Vermeersch, Robert Stannard and Michael Gogl form part of his supporting cast.
"It is difficult to judge whether Mathieu is as strong as when he won Strade Bianche in 2021, but I can say that he is very fine," Roodhooft said. "He is motivated and healthy, he's been able to train well, and he's had few physical issues."
Van der Poel, for his part, insisted last month that a fifth world title in cyclocross offered no guarantees about his prospects on the road. "It's really nice to become world champion but it isn't anything to do with the road season," he said. "You start again from zero, and I'm going to try and do some nice races in the road season."
With Pogacar and Van Aert both absent on Saturday, however, Van der Poel lines up as an obvious favourite alongside Alaphilippe, who showcased his form with an assured victory at the Faun-Ardèche Classic last week. The Tuscan race kicks off a two-week Italian swing for Van der Poel, who also participates in Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo before turning his attention to the cobbles.
After earning a three-year WorldTour licence by winning early and often in recent seasons, Alpecin-Deceuninck appear to have placed a firmer emphasis on supporting Van der Poel in the Classics in 2023. Søren Kragh Andersen was the marquee new arrival in a winter that saw the team lose climber Jay Vine to UAE Team Emirates, for instance, while Roodhooft pointed out that many of the Classics core had preferred to train rather than race in February.
"Our start is mediocre and other teams are doing well, but it's not like we're crying in a corner," he said. "Our leaders have barely raced: a total of twelve of our riders trained at altitude. We did this in order to aim higher in the races that matter to us, but that also has consequences. We will only be able to say afterwards if we were stupid or if we did the right thing."
Van der Poel being Van der Poel, he might provide an immediate answer in Siena on Saturday.
