Apparently he doesn't need to be.

Yeah, that little attempt to get away was ill advised.

That was a hell of an effort. Did MvdP just burn his Sunday matches?

MvdP just had a few more matches.

That was exciting to watch, but painful to endure for the racers participating.

Good opener effort for all of them.

Sunday will be fun. One of the few days allow myself to day-drink.

Yeah, I thought he put in too much work closing down Victor and Tom. But somehow had enough. Fun to watch.

No doubt, perched on the front set up the winning move. He'll be kicking himself for that after still being able to sprint for 3rd.

Can't everyone out-sprint Benoot?

After another 2nd, JV is ready for their closer to come off the bench.

A couple of observations, no doubt JV as a team are exceptionally strong this year, if all of them are going good it will be really hard to beat them and Flanders and Roubaix.

My man Victor Camperants is amazing, I hope he gets a big win soon

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Yeah, he's really completed the transition from DeGendt/Taco break specialist to a full-fledged classics man.

Turner was overall awesome, but I think he ran out of matches right when Pidcock could have used one more.

Yes.

What I think I saw:

It appeared that Pidcock was pissed at VC for sitting on just before VC took off. Pidcock then chased him when he should have left that to the beasts. Game over more or less right there. Had he risked losing it to win it, he's singing Free Ride, and then who knows. Maybe he pips MvDP maybe not. He's very game, but intemperate and we saw similar hubris at MSR last year. Wasted efforts that seem to come from fog of war emotion.

I was hoping VC would cash in on that one. But he's still on top step of classics 'stashe game.

It was exciting watching him go for it.

The post-race interviews were more than the usual enlightening. MvdP talking about how he knew Campenaerts had a 58 tooth large ring, so he knew he had to measure efforts, and not chase downhill attacks. Pidcock clearly unaware, sort of laughed/shrugged when told. "Well, there you go." Tiny details.

Dang, Ineos owned at marginals gainz. Makes sense. I thought it was slightly odd when MdVP kind of sat up after initially chasing VC's attack. I had thought it was the DS telling him not to signal he was going to chase every attack....but might have been his own call to wait until it flattened to organize a chase.

Maybe MdVP is smarter than we often give him credit for.

Good catch there

So apparently Campenaerts telegraphed intentions of using the 58-tooth chainring when both he and MvdP were in training camp. Seems that Campenaerts was a tad too eager.

No Alaphilippe and Wout is likely out? So... MvdP & Pog?

I just saw that as well

Donno if either Pidcock or Pog can go the full 250+

JV will need to adopt a Quickstep type approach

MvdP should be good on paper, having done well in his last 6hr+ race.

Quite an open race

MvDP just needs to work on shortening his sprint a bit. Even against Benoot he went for it from 250m. That got him last year at Flanders. Wout always wants to sprint early too. When it works it's amazing they can hold it that long, but on long hard days like the classics that's a big ask. Of course, looking at MvDP's win at Amstel Gold I suppose he can start his sprint from anywhere inside 10K when he is on form and hold it to the line.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

What happened to Wout?!

Got The Thing that's going around.

Well that is disappointing. BikePlague2022 continues.

Really bummed that Wout is out.
In his absence it's really hard to look beyond MvDP

I am going to go with fairly obvious picks..

MvDP
Pidcok
Pog

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Maybe I'm incorrectly viewing it from the lens of a 48 y.o. hack, but I have trouble with:

Weds: collapsed on the ground after barely surviving the best Piddles, Benoot, King Kung, et al. can throw at you.
Sunday: SEND IT!

Yeah there are real question marks about MvdP. I feel like he's still coming back from his layoff. Sure, he took at stage against a weak field down in Italy and won Dwars, but as you say he did seem to go real deep for that win. And De Ronde is a lot longer race and could be made very hard. He is superhuman and nobody should be surprised if he wins, but it's quite reasonable to question if a) he's back in form and b) Dwars didn't take something out of him.

And there's questions about Piddles and Taddy too here. I agree that those three are pretty clearly favourites, but it's not like the podium is fait accompli. Lots of dudes have a shot here.

Yeah I don't disagree at all that there will be other players.
Clearly there are others that are going well, and I doubt the podium will actually happen as I picked.
But for picks it's hard to look beyond those 3.

Clearly Victor Camparnants, Taj Banoot and a few others are going well.
But they will need lots of luck to bag a big one ahead of the 3 big names.

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Yeah, having said all that my podium picks are probably going to be the same as yours.