“Thanks for the lead-out”: Mathieu van der Poel helps teammate take Strava KOM from Filippo Ganna over Spanish climb; Vuelta back on the cards? Chris Froome says he’ll be “back on the bike in no time” after breaking collarbone + more on the live blog

It’s been quite a few weeks for Mathieu van der Poel. Since winning the Cyclocross World Championships at Liévin earlier this month, the Dutchman has been training with his team Alpecin-Deceuninck in Spain ahead of the spring classics.

And after winning every cyclocross race he participated in the 2024/25 season, Van der Poel was seen taking it easy yesterday as the lead-out man for his 29-year-old teammate Sam Gaze, who took the KOM on the climb from Tarbena to Coll de Rates from Filippo Ganna.

Leadout 🇳🇱 Mathieu van der Poel is back! 🔥🚀

📹 @LucGrefte https://t.co/Q9AvJnhzMB pic.twitter.com/WjB2DE4EX7

— Domestique (@Domestique___) February 25, 2025

The Kiwi mountain biker rode the 5km long, 5.6 per cent gradient climb near Calp in nine minutes and 54 seconds, beating Ganna’s time by 16 seconds. He also became the KOM for the ‘Tarbena last 3km’ segment on Strava, once again beating Ganna by 14 seconds this time.

> “If you’re not wearing aero socks, you’re not getting a KOM”: The painstaking prep that went into bagging the ultimate Box Hill Strava KOM

Ganna had only very recently claimed the KOM award for himself on the prestigious climb that’s become a favourite training ground for several pros, beating Remco Evenepoel’s previous time by one second in February.

Even Tadej Pogačar was there back in December, setting a blistering pace on albeit a different segment of Coll de Rates, riding the 6.4km 5.5 per cent climb at an average pace of 31.2km/hr.

> “His training’s started well”: Tadej Pogačar obliterates famous Strava KOM – with help of lightning-fast UAE Team Emirates train – during 205km, five-and-a-half-hour winter ride

The social media account Velofacts calculated Gaze’s average power during the ride to be around 504 watts. He captioned his ride on the popular activity and ride-sharing app as: “Thanks Mathieu van der Poel for the lead out.”

Other names in the top ten, besides Ganna and Evenepoel include Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Toms Skujins (Lidl-Trek), and Ilan Van Wilder (Soudal Quick-Step).

Van der Poel’s season kicks off with the Tirreno-Adriatico in March, following which the former world champion will take on the Milan-San Remo, Ronde van Vlaanderen and the Paris-Roubaix.

Meanwhile, this becomes the second ‘trophy’ to be taken away from Ganna in the span of two weeks, after the Ineos rider’s win at the now-infamous stage of the Volta ao Algarve was written off due to an organisational mistake which saw most of the riders take the wrong turn and end up on the other side of the finish line route.

After the dooring incident with a bpost van driver in which the double Olympic gold medallist suffered serious injuries, Evenepoel was recently spotted back on his bike. Fans would be glad to know that the Belgian seems to be back in full training mode now in his home country. But there’s a catch.

In his off-time, the Quick-Step rider seems to have grown a very questionable moustache, for reasons that pass me by. Maybe he’s going for a Timothée Chalamet look?

OMG MOUSTACHE ALERT !!! 😱 www.instagram.com/stories/remc...

[image or embed]

— allergy-al.bsky.social (@allergy-al.bsky.social) 24 February 2025 at 17:08

Taking social media posts at face value is never a good idea, but all things considered, Chris Froome doesn’t look too bad in an image posted by the four-time Tour de France on Instagram after he fractured his collarbone in the crash at the final stage of the UAE Tour.

After the crash, Froome was taken for surgery in Dubai, and he’s now shared a picture with a wristband saying ‘Fall Risk’ and a song choice of ‘Clumsy Situations’. The 39-year-old wrote: “Accurate. Back in the mend again,” before thanking his doctors.

Even better, the 39-year-old British rider added that he’ll be “back on the bike in no time”, thus quelling the doubts over whether we had seen the last of him at the UAE Tour, in what would surely have been a rather unceremonious end to a living legend’s career.

> They think it’s all over… but it turns out he might have another year left in him: Chris Froome “keeping door open” to racing in 2026 – after admitting in December “I think it’s time to retire”

With Froome keen to ride the Vuelta a España one last time before calling it a day on his career, he should easily be able to get himself back to speed with the Spanish Grand Tour six months away. Whether he’ll be considered good enough by Israel-Premier Techto line up at the start in Torino on 23 August is a different topic altogether…

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