Like the karaoke waiter who, after 25 years of pouring drinks at dawn, has his ears anesthetized to screams, roosters and squeaks, and I couldn’t even enjoy the sudden wonders, so alien is he now to the music, deaf to the horror and beauty, indifferent, like, perhaps, the cycling fans, so many years unaccustomed to the concerts of the dizos, always so magnificent and superior, that many times they only awaken boring and repetitive applause. Without emotion. No mystery. In any race, or they start from afar, the attack most desired by fans fed up with tactics and fears, the emotion they awaken shines for a second. Afterwards, they murder her themselves. At that moment, 100, 50, 30 kilometers from the finish line you already know what will happen, and in the mud of Hulst and its slopes, a city in the south of Holland closer to Flemish Antwerp than to any other large city in the Netherlands, on the tapestry of red leaves, bare tree branches, on a labyrinthine circuit in a beautiful park with a small lake, halfway through the first of the eight laps of the race it is already going First, the “haha!”, how great!, quickly turns into a “ufff!”, it will not fall or puncture at least so that the World Cup finds some suspense. No, it doesn’t fall. Ahead, an hour of display of speed and prudence. He is careful not to force either his machine or his bicycle, his body is beautiful, harmonious with the frame, far from him the violence of exaggerated efforts, a centaur with hands like claws to hold on to the handlebar levers and sometimes rise above the mud, and even fly, and everything flows. The rest was calculation. And his white socks, his white booties, like a first communion boy, end up spotless.
“I think maybe last weekend I felt a little stronger, but this circuit was completely different and I tried to manage the bike, the tires, everything, as best as possible to make sure the mechanics didn’t ruin the party,” he says to summarize the race with which he won his eighth elite World Championship, the one he has won the most in history, one more than the myth of all myths, the Belgian Eric de Vlaeminck, whom so much talent and exaggeration drove to madness. Quite the opposite of the manager Van der Poel, 31 years old, who wins by keeping to himself, avoiding risks, avoiding falls, skidding in the mud, saving energy to climb vertical slopes and long stairs faster than anyone else, and he doesn’t even jump the two planks in the middle of the path with his bike. “I did what I had to do and I’m very happy that everything turned out well.”
Since 11 years ago he won his first World Cup event (and he already has 51 victories, more than anyone in history, one more than Sven Nys, the other god of the Belgians, and father of Thibau) and his first absolute World Cup, at the age of 20, none of the rivals of the most talented grandson of Raymond Poulidor, starting with his older brother, David, continuing with the Belgian Wout van Aert, absent in Hulst due to injury, the only one who can proclaiming that he has defeated him from time to time, and won three World Cups in a row, the last eight years ago, it seems like a defeat to finish second in the races in which the Dutch star runs. And the fight to be second, repeated 12 times this season in the World Cup, the 12 that Van der Poel ran and won, is always the only exciting thing. It is a duel that two young men have fought repeatedly over the months, the Belgian Thibau Nys, 23, a flea of dynamite and determination, and the Dutch Tibor del Grosso, 22, a tall man of 1.90m, the height of Van der Poel without his shoulders or deltoids, who has already been twice under-23 world champion. Already ahead of the rest, after Van der Poel, from the first curve, both risk, skid, fall, suffer. Del Grosso (silver) beats Nys (bronze), and those behind are fighting to be fourth, and a Spaniard in the orange and blue tide of Belgians and Dutch, and an Italian. This is Felip Orts, from Alicante from La Vila-Joiosa, who goes wrong, comes back, becomes fourth and finishes seventh, not so far away, one minute behind Van der Poel, as to not hear the applause of his compatriots for an idol who celebrates his victory like Cristiano Ronaldo the goals.
Standing on the pedals, raising your arms, grabbing your hands and putting them down hard, here I am. “I had it very rehearsed,” says Van der Poel, who bought a house in Cumbres del Sol, in Moraira (Alicante), where he trains in winter and plays golf, and this year he trains more than ever, not only thinking about cyclocross, but, above all, about Pogacar and the Tour of Flanders, about how to ensure that the Slovenian doesn’t leave him stuck again this spring. and we invented many different celebrations. Ronaldo’s salute is one of the most used, so I thought it was the right time to imitate it.”
The routine of his victories does not bore Van der Poel — “yes, it is very special,” he says, smiling from ear to ear. “When I started cycling, my dream was to one day become a world champion in the elite category. And to now have the greatest number of titles of all time is incredible”—nor do the young people who worship him, energy, class and determination, who wants to continue his path in the mud, on the asphalt and on the cobblestones, and three hours before, in the junior event, he starts badly, looks blocked, passes 25th on the first lap, comes back and finishes fourth.
