Opinion: Tadej Pogacar's podium implosion was unavoidably glorious after enthralling Tour of Flanders

If you walk around Naples with a large wallet in your trousers, then you’re going to get pickpocketed. And this is no different to Grand Tour winners moseying around Oudenaarde with their fancy yellow jerseys on display.

Tadej Pogacar came to his debut cobbled Monument on Sunday off the back of 10th place in Dwars door Vlaanderen during which he showed a whiff of tactical naivety after missing the winning move and being forced to chase potatoes for much of the run into the finish.

In the Ronde van Vlaanderen, as Pogacar became the first reigning Tour de France champion to ride Flanders since Lance Armstrong in 2005 (or, for the purists, Eddy Merckx in 1975), the Slovenian was caught out by an early bottleneck and hit the deck in a slow-speed crash. Was the 23-year-old once again betraying his inexperience in the Belgian cobbled classics?

When a select 14-man counter attack materialised from nowhere with 85km remaining, Pogacar and his UAE team-mates were caught napping as the likes of Mads Pedersen, the 2019 winner Alberto Bettiol, and no fewer than three Quick-Step riders went up the road in pursuit of the tiring breakaway.

Perhaps this dominator of Grand Tour mountain stages, time trials and hilly classics was in the process of another painful and prolonged wake-up call on the cobbled bergs of Flanders.

No such luck. Or, at least, not yet. For Pogacar kept his cool and, after a solid stint from his Italian team-mate Matteo Trentin to close the gap, the Slovenian threw down the hammer on the first of the two Oude Kwaremont-Paterberg doubles with just over 50km remaining. A stinging attack on the infamous Koppenberg a bit later showed that Pog had done his homework. The decisive five-man move was formed – only for Pogacar’s series of attacks on the second Kwaremont-Paterberg combo to reduce it to a two-horse race.

Here, it’s worth looking back at Milan-San Remo for some parallels. Three weeks ago, Pogacar put in no fewer than four unseated attacks on the Poggio but to no avail. It was similar, but different, in the Ronde where Pogacar’s sustained uphill devouring of the cobbles on the Ronde’s answer to the Poggio appeared to sound the death knell for everyone except Mathieu van der Poel.

The Dutchman once left the road and almost came a cropper – much like Matej Mohoric on his daredevil descent of the Poggio. Van der Poel kept upright and didn’t let the elastic snap – and by the time Pogacar crested the summit of the Paterberg, he had his shadow stuck right on his shoulder.

Mohoric, as we know, showed remarkable bravery in his decisive descent of the Poggio. Indeed, the moment he left the road and then bunny-hopped back from the gutter was arguably the same moment his closest pursuer, Pogacar, decided it wasn’t worth the candle and took his foot off the gas.

What Van der Poel did on the home straight at Oudenaarde showed perhaps even more guts than Mohoric during his borderline reckless descent. For the Dutchman came onto the home straight with a 1-1 record in two-up sprints in the Ronde, having beaten Wout van Aert but then lost to Kasper Asgreen in similar situations in the past two editions.

With Valentin Madouas and Dylan Van Baarle closing in and Pogacar having forced him onto the front going under the flamme rouge, Van der Poel gambled everything on having enough in the legs right at the death. Extremely brave given what happened last year, given his few race days this season, and given the name of his opponent. But Van der Poel also made an intriguing calculated risk on Pogacar not knowing what to do in such a situation.

And Pog duly suffered the same stage fright the Dutchman banked on him having. Here was a Grand Tour winner being asked to do something that was not in his repertoire – like Mario Cippolini being transported onto a showdown on Alpe d’Huez against Marco Pantani.

But Pogacar, for all his inexperience, should have known better. Rather than only worry about the man ahead of him, he should have spotted the threat from behind and acted before it was too late.

As it happened, the 23-year-old did raise two arms over the line – not in celebration, but in protest for what he deemed as an unfair manoeuvre from his pursuers.

Nothing but sour grapes, though. Not something we expect from someone who, frankly, has never been put in such a position before. His bid for the win was already over by the time Van Baarle and Madouas blasted past him in a pincer movement. As the superb Robbie McEwen said on comms, Pogacar had dug his own grave on the main street of Oudenaarde.

And it was glorious. Glorious to see Van der Poel’s gamble come off; glorious to see Dylan van Baarle – who earlier had been given a new bike with a puncture from his own mechanic – snatch a podium position from nowhere alongside the cramping Madouas, only the fourth Frenchman to do so in 30 years; and glorious to see an irate Pogacar ride off on his own and away from the media glare for a moment of calm reflection after making such a rare blunder.

Above all, it was a glorious reminder of Van der Poel’s brilliance just as much as Pogacar’s own humanness. The man with two Tours and two Monuments to his name is not simply an extra-terrestrial who can win any bike race at a whim but one who can suffer a finish-line ignominy to rival even Julian Alaphilippe.

But the best thing? Quite simply, his calamity ensures that we are going to see Pogacar return to this race again. He can’t come so close and fail so miserably and leave it at that. And any race with Pogacar competing in is a brilliant race. His own ego will understand that he owes it to everyone to come back all the stronger for his mad moment of weakness.

“Pogacar was maybe the strongest in the race and he rode offensively," Van der Poel said. "I would have applauded him if he’d won – and I applaud him even when he didn’t. Maybe he just needs to sprint a couple more times here to get it right.”

The world of cycling hopes - and expects - that challenge to be accepted with open arms. Pity anyone coming up against Pogacar, meanwhile, on his favoured terrain in the races to come…

Before that, though, perhaps it’s time for the world of cycling to start worrying about Van der Poel again. While resting up and recovering from injury at the start of the season, Van der Poel seemed to momentarily disappear from relevance as his rival Van Aert racked up the wins alongside Pogacar.

But third place on his return at Milan-San Remo has been followed by three wins – including back-to-back triumphs in Dwars door Vlaanderen and De Ronde. Good luck anyone facing him at Amstel Gold next week and Paris-Roubaix the next…

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