De Vlaeminck: ‘Van Aert is strong but Van der Poel is pure fantasy’

Only the Flemish has won the 5 Monuments and a world title in the mud. Sunday in Holland the final clash between the two giants

Spontaneous. Direct. No filters of any kind. Roger De Vlaeminck remained like this: the opportunity to verify this is a chat in view of the cross-country World Championships… and beyond. Not only because the great Belgian was indeed world champion of specialties, but also the last in order of time to have won all 5 Monuments on the road. On Sunday in Hoogerheide, Holland, the attention will be all for the epoch-making duel between Mathieu van der Poel (winner yesterday in the World Cup in France) and Wout van Aert (also first, on Saturday in Hamme, in the last test): Roger De Vlaeminck is a privileged observer who always says only what he thinks. And he always has Italy in his heart where he has one of his best friends, the former Tuscan masseur and sports director Piero Pieroni.

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