Pogacar understands Vollering's reaction and supports van Aert: "It's the cancer of our current society"

The UAE Emirates-XRG team hotel during Flemish cycling week is less than 500 meters from the finish line of Dwars door Vlaanderen, but their leader, Tadej Pogacar, skipped the semi-classic on Wednesday. He explored the finals of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix himself that day, but he still wanted to say something about the criticism of Wout van Aert after Neilson Powless beat him.

Pogacar was on his bike himself and none of his teammates were in the final. Tim Wellens (not at his best) and Nils Politt (crashed) abandoned the race, and Jhonatan Narváez could not compete after an earlier illness. Only Mikkel Bjerg of UAE Emirates-XRG rode a good race, attacking with the eventual winner, Powless.

"I didn't see it, but I heard what happened," Pogacar said about the finale in Waregem. "That's how it goes in a race. They made a mistake, and that can happen. Neilson was also very strong. Wout makes a good impression on me, and I think he will be fine during the Tour of Flanders, which is his big goal. He always knows how to find extra energy for the big races, and I expect he will be ready on Sunday."

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Pogacar backs Vollering and supports Van Aert: "He won't think about that on Sunday"

On Wednesday, Demi Vollering stepped up for the Visma | Lease a Bike Belgian. "Yep, I was also laughing a bit when I first heard and then saw that Visma lost while being in the break with three…" Vollering responded to Wednesday's race on Instagram. "But after watching it back once more and hearing Wout’s interview, I changed my mind. We should not forget that we are all human. We love a bit of drama. We love underdog stories. Wout is human as well. This guy has been through a lot!"

"And everyone has had their opinion about him.We all judge too early, especially too easily. We are tempted to forget everything he has been through, and we probably don’t even know half of it because we cannot look inside his head or understand what it does to him mentally. Hearing him say that he was egoistic and that it is not who he is was painful for me, because we forget so easily what stress, doubt, and all the mess thrown at him actually do to him."

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Pogacar was asked about his view of the whole affair as a top-level cyclist. "There is an enormous amount of pressure on us. Someone like Wout doesn't ride many races, but when he does, they are big races, and the pressure is on him. Then he has to perform. Of course, it's also a bummer when the odds are three to one, but he won't think about that anymore on Sunday."

Finally, the Slovenian from UAE Emirates-XRG had some striking words about Van Aert's critics. "Social media? That's the cancer of our current society. You can spend all day on social media; there are certainly positive things about it, but the negative things stand out. It can ruin your day, and it's not worth it. You should not give social media and the news – no offense to you guys – too much attention. That is the easiest thing to do."

Read here what Pogacar had to say about his upcoming duel with Mathieu van der Poel in the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

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