"I can't say anything, because lately we've already been lying enough."
Good morning,
These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.
Stood out to me today: "I don't think it's worth watching."
¡Vamos!
🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS
"I leave the door open, but I think others may have already shut it completely."
Remco Evenepoel on Paris-Roubaix, Milano-Sanremo, and where the classics can take him
Remco Evenepoel left Sporza in suspense after his Ronde van Vlaanderen debut, but stopped well short of a promise. Asked whether Paris-Roubaix was on the table, he blew out his cheeks and searched for words. "That still needs to be properly discussed," he said carefully. Then came the line that said more than he probably intended: "I leave the door open, but I think others may have already shut it completely. We'll still have to talk about it."
He added one more layer of qualification: "That someone like me can open such a door? I won't promise anything. It's still early. I can't say anything, because lately we've already been lying enough."
The Sanremo question cut just as deep. He admitted the decision to skip it had only been made days before the race, and he wasn't happy about it. "With the finales as they ride them now, that work suits me maybe even better. Especially if you see how they ride away. If Tom Pidcock stays with them, I can certainly do that too." Then the closer: "Next year I'll probably start there."
Back in front of Sporza reporter Sammy Neyrinck later in the evening, the Paris-Roubaix door closed a little further. "Right now it's not in the planning. Maybe it gets discussed, but the odds are very much against it. My heart tells me I want to start there someday, but I want to be at my best at Amstel and Liège, and I haven't done any reconnaissance of Roubaix either." He was blunt about the logic: "I don't think it's very smart to suddenly line up there."
"I finally turned off the cobbles and then realized, 'fuck, I'm alone'."
Demi Vollering on finding calm inside the chaos of the Ronde van Vlaanderen
Demi Vollering won her first Ronde van Vlaanderen, and the interview she gave afterward, as reported by Rouleur, was just as striking as the race. She described cresting the Paterberg with no one on her wheel: "I knew that I just had to push without looking behind. I finally turned off the cobbles and then realized, 'fuck, I'm alone.'"
The Namaste celebration at the finish was no accident. "I did Namaste because today was International Calm Day. I really enjoy meditation, and I really feel like it helps me in the race. We train our body so hard, but often we forget that in the end, it all happens up here," she said, pointing to her temple. "To make efforts to be calm in these kinds of races — it's something that you need to train as well."
She spoke candidly about the mental dimension of the race, and then moved into territory that clearly costs her something to share. Her voice cracked when discussing mental health: "I spoke about it last year after La Vuelta. Girls came to me and thanked me for speaking about that, because I think in the end, everybody knows somebody who is struggling sometimes. I think it's good to keep the conversation going."
"I don't feed on memories. I feed on emotions."
Andrea Tafi on winning the Ronde van Vlaanderen in 2002, his Mapei family, and why Belgians still stop him in the street
Andrea Tafi turns 60 in May, a birthday he frames the same way he rode: looking forward, not back. Yet some wins stay with you regardless. "At nearly 25 years' distance, that victory still lives in my heart, as does Paris-Roubaix," he told TuttoBiciWeb. "Two victories that are worth a career: two gems that shine with their own light."
He is, as he notes, the only Italian man ever to have won both the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. In Belgium, that means something particular. "They have longer memories than us. It's no coincidence that over there I'm a star. They recognize me in the street. They stop me for selfies and autographs."
The 2002 race itself was almost over before it began: a puncture at 80 kilometers on the cobbles, the team car stuck at the back after a poor Milano-Sanremo. He had to wait, then chase, then trust a feeling. "As often happened to me, when I had the sensation of having lost everything, I galvanized myself."
The warmth he reserves for Mapei and Giorgio Squinzi is total. "That was a crazy team that wrote memorable pages of cycling. I'm proud to have been part of that team, which I always called a family, because it was led by a great family."
He describes Squinzi and Adriana Spazzoli not as managers but as something closer to architects of character. "They didn't just want good athletes, they also wanted good people." The kicker: every year after a strong result, Squinzi would call him into the Milan office, tear up the existing contract, and give him a better one. "I never found anyone like that."
He ends where he began, resisting the pull of nostalgia. "I don't feed on memories. I feed on emotions."
"It's not a goal to be the same as men. We have our own identity. It doesn't make it more exciting to copy it from the men."
Annemiek van Vleuten on the transformation of women's cycling, from €100-a-month contracts to sponsors knocking on the door
Annemiek van Vleuten traced the full arc of women's cycling's transformation in an appearance on the Domestique Hotseat. Her first contract: €100 a month. By 2009, €500. She could only go full time because she was still living in a student house in Wageningen at €200-a-month rent. "I earned 800 euros with cycling, I paid 200 euros rent, and I made the decision to go full time. I still lived a little bit cheaply as a student, but that's how I could start and follow my dream."
The Rabobank era brought the first team bus in women's cycling. Before that, her squad traveled to races in a camper van belonging to teammate Marianne Vos's parents. But the wider sport stagnated for years: salaries flat, broadcasts absent, no outside interest. "I really felt in those years that they were not interested in women's cycling."
The turning point, she says, was not a single race result but a commercial shift. "We were always begging for sponsors, please help us, please broadcast us on television. And suddenly we are now in a phase where sponsors love to see it and broadcast it to the fans."
She pushed back firmly on the instinct to measure women's cycling against the men's calendar. On the question of Grand Tour length: "It's not a goal to be the same as men. We have our own identity. It doesn't make it more exciting to copy it from the men." The comparison, she added, wears on her. "Sometimes it makes me a little bit tired, always that comparison with men's cycling."
What excites her instead is unpredictability: the emergence of riders like Maeva Squiban and an unexpected world champion in Magdeleine Vallieres. "Before, I always knew who the competitors were. Now, I don't know. And I think that's a treasure."
"That cell in Australia was the best thing that could have happened to him. In hindsight."
David van der Poel on the night that changed Mathieu's career
David van der Poel doesn't sugarcoat it. The night before the 2022 World Championships in Wollongong, his brother Mathieu van der Poel spent in police custody following an incident at the team hotel. He still started the race. He abandoned early. And according to David, something fundamental shifted. "I have never seen Mathieu so sad and insecure. He was in a very bad place. That's when the realization hit: from now on, I'm going to give it my all. He started training even harder and didn't let any more opportunities slip away."
The deeper consequence came later. "That event in Australia created disbelief and a sense of injustice," David told AD. "But it also changed something. That cell in Australia was the best thing that could have happened to him. In hindsight." A year later, Glasgow. Rainbow jersey. "The joy there was intense. For me, that's his most beautiful victory. All the built-up frustration from the year before came out."
David's portrait of his brother before all this is equally revealing. "He had been winning throughout his entire career. Everything worked for him. Until he was 20, he was able to rely heavily on talent. Back then, he would win races even when riding tactically foolishly, because he was so much better than the rest." That ease, David says, created the playboy label, and left a dangerous amount of room between potential and preparation. Australia closed it.
🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD
"Leave me alone, guys. You're bullying me."
— Remco Evenepoel, HLN, joking backstage after the Tour of Flanders podium ceremony, as Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel teased him about wearing sponsor gloves for the photos despite not having worn them during the race.
Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.
💬 QUICK QUOTES
"In the end it all begins in your head, that's where you have to find the strength. Everything begins with a dream, and you have to chase it. It's painful, you have to work incredibly hard and give everything. But it's always worth it." — Demi Vollering, Sporza, after winning the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"When I was getting changed behind the podium I thought, my ears are just killing me. From all the screaming of the people right in your ears. Yeah, incredible." — Demi Vollering, WielerFlits, on the noise of the Belgian crowd along the course.
"I had a great day. It was just fun." — Zoe Backstedt, CyclingNews, after taking fifth at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"Do you have anything for cramps?" — Mathieu van der Poel, Sporza, asking his team car with 25km to go in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"You're an animal! Congrats!" — Mathieu van der Poel, Sporza, congratulating Tadej Pogačar immediately after crossing the finish line.
"I have one problem: there's a phenomenon riding around. I was putting out 650 watts on the last climb of the Kwaremont and I couldn't hold his wheel." — Mathieu van der Poel, HLN, on how strong Tadej Pogačar was in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"I didn't know if Mathieu wanted him gapped or not — I had the sensation that maybe... I was doubting if he cared. And yeah, I definitely didn't want Remco to come back. Remco is such a bullet as a rider. If you give him a second chance, if he comes back, you never know. You can regret it later." — Tadej Pogačar, Cycling Pro Net, explaining in a post-race interview why he kept looking back after dropping Remco Evenepoel in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"Wout was incredibly strong, he had to wait for me on the Koppenberg." — Mads Pedersen, In De Leiderstrui, on working with Wout van Aert in the chase group at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"Riding again on Sunday and trying to get noticed — for my father with colon cancer. Showing myself in any way at all is going to make him proud regardless." — Victor Vercouillie, Sporza, before the Ronde van Vlaanderen, where he made the early breakaway for the second consecutive year.
"Three years." — Remco Evenepoel, HLN, answering how long he had been asking to ride the Ronde van Vlaanderen — directly countering his former sports director Patrick Lefevere, who claimed that week that Evenepoel had never wanted to race it.
"I always thought he didn't want to himself, but Remco assures me — even this week by text — that it was our coaches who had the final say. I don't necessarily dispute that, but let's be honest: in those years, Remco had the loudest voice in the team. If he had really wanted it, Milano-Sanremo and the Ronde would have been on his program." — Patrick Lefevere, Het Nieuwsblad, walking back his earlier claim that Evenepoel never wanted to race the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"I won that race just in time, for sure. It was probably still possible in 2020. But nowadays it is so difficult to win the Ronde van Vlaanderen, the Monuments, and the big races." — Alberto Bettiol, WielerFlits, reflecting on his 2019 Ronde van Vlaanderen victory and the current dominance of a small group of riders.
"If you want to beat Tadej Pogačar in the Tour of Flanders right now, I think it is the only way. You just have to be a wheel-sucker. A bastard. A leech. Maximum exploitation." — Thijs Zonneveld, sports director at Beat Cycling, In De Waaier, on what he believes is the only viable strategy against Pogačar at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.
"I think I will keep cherishing it in my heart till the end of my days — being proud that I raced alongside those champions who win everything that is possible in cycling." — Matej Mohorič, WielerFlits.
"I don't think it's worth watching." — Tadej Pogačar, X, joking with Pauline Ferrand-Prévot when she told him she was planning to watch the men's Ronde van Vlaanderen that evening, after finishing second in the women's race.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋
Jay