Van der Poel ‘clear favourite’ but 'never count us out,’ says Jorgenson

Matteo Jorgenson believes that Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) will be the man to beat at the Tour of Flanders, but says he and his Visma-Lease a Bike team can never be ruled out of contention.

Van Aert’s injury means the focus for Visma will be on the US rider heading into Flanders on Sunday, but Jorgenson admits that the team have yet to reconfigure their plans following the Belgian’s absence.

“If you saw the amount of man-hours that they put into making the original plan, I think you would understand that they still haven’t finished the new plan with the riders that we have now,” said Jorgenson at the pre-race press conference.

He continued: “I still don’t even know the final plan but I think we basically will have to play off of Alpecin because I think they have full pressure on them to take the race into their hands and we’ll just have to look for our moment.

“I think there’s one clear favourite and that’s Mathieu van der Poel. [But] I think I’m still in what I consider the best [team] in the world so you can never really count us out.”

The 24-year-old explained in more detail what sets Van der Poel apart from the rest, but appeared confident as he bids to add Sunday’s Monument to his victories at Paris-Nice and at Dwars door Vlaanderen.

“I think as a rider Van der Poel is definitely a notch above just in theoretical terms, but it is a bike race and like we’ve seen in the past races, a lot of things can happen so I think we still have a good chance and I have a lot of confidence,” he added.

“I have to remain realistic and I’ll have to do my best on Sunday. I don’t think anything magical is going to happen but I think my legs this year are something completely new and I’m still finding my limits I think.

“Actually, I haven’t really found where I blew up yet so my feeling after Wednesday is a new level of confidence in these races.”