Tom Dumoulin has urged Wout van Aert to take a leaf out of Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar's books, and race with "real courage" this Spring Classics campaign.
Dumoulin, the 2017 Giro d'Italia winner who retired in 2022, has just launched a new podcast with the Netherlands' national public service broadcaster NOS, alongside fellow former pro Michael Boogerd.
In the first episode, there were plenty of season-previewing topics of conversation but what stood out were Dumoulin's comments on Van Aert, his former teammate at Visma-Lease a Bike.
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"When I look at his racing style as an analyst, I notice that he’s often reacting. He responds to what’s happening in the race. But Van der Poel makes the race – he attacks, he drops a bomb 100 kilometres from the finish.
"More and more, that approach is proving to be a winning formula. Not just for Mathieu van der Poel, but also for Tadej Pogačar. In fact, we’re seeing that the riders who dare, who show real courage, are ultimately the ones who win races. Maybe it’s time for Wout van Aert to start doing that too."
Pogačar has made a routine of winning major Classics and World Championships with increasingly long-range solo exploits, while Van der Poel has soloed to three straight Paris-Roubaix titles and the 2024 Tour of Flanders from distance. The latter two are the races Van Aert covets most but he's yet to win them, while Van der Poel has won each three times.
More broadly, Pogačar has 10 Monument titles to his name and Van der Poel has racked up eight, but Van Aert is stuck on one – his 2020 Milan-San Remo victory.
"In Paris-Roubaix – the Monument that suits him best – he definitely has a real chance. I think Tour of Flanders will be very difficult against a strong Van der Poel and Pogačar," Dumoulin argued.
"But in Roubaix, his opportunities are there. The problem is, if he waits for Mathieu or Pogačar to make the move, it could end up being another year of 'so close, yet so far'."
Dumoulin suggested the pressure and expectation on his shoulders in Belgium has had a "paralysing" effect. "He’s never bad, but maybe that consistency pushes him into a more reactive style of racing."
However, he pointed out the final stage of last year's Tour de France as an example of a time where Van Aert showed exactly the attitude he'd like to see more of.
In a revamped finale up and down the steep cobbled streets of Montmartre, Van Aert attacked from range and succeeded in dropping Pogačar – a distinct rarity in the past few years – before soloing to victory on the Champs-Elysées.
"When nobody expected it on Montmartre, he just exploded and rode away. In that moment, it was truly all or nothing; either I drop Pogačar now, or I end up with nothing," Dumoulin explained.
"If he can bring that same mindset to a race like Paris-Roubaix, I still think it’s possible."
