National coach Sven Vanthourenhout already announced that the selection for the Olympic Games is no longer being tinkered with. A decision that Frank Hoste also understands.
“The Olympic committee asks very early on who will come along. The riders are then designated and everything is arranged for them in Tokyo. I think it will be very difficult to replace someone.”
“Unless someone drops out, like Sagan did. Then they can use the reserves. That could be with one of the two, Greg Van Avermaet or
Tiesj Benoot. But that will certainly not happen with Van Avermaet as an ex-Olympic champion.”
“With Benoot, it really has to come from him. He has to throw in the towel himself. I don’t think that will happen, but with what we have seen from Teuns now, it would be the best option.”
“As a rider you may only be able to experience the Olympic Games once in your life. That is of course a personal reason and has nothing to do with the national goal to become Olympic champion, because then Teuns would fit perfectly into the team. With Evenepoel And Van Aert in his current form that would be a great team, but unfortunately it probably won’t happen.”
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In any case, who will also be present in Tokyo is Tadej Pogacar. With his second Tour victory under his belt, Hoste has no doubts either. Not anymore, because he had his reservations beforehand.
“I was a bit afraid that Pogacar would have a relapse in the last days, like Bernal happened in the Giro. He was a little less there then and I expected that with Pogacar, because he is still quite young. He also does not yet have the experience to drive with yellow for almost 2 weeks, but there is still a stress factor.”
“I thought maybe the fatigue would start to play up a bit, but we saw today that that is absolutely not the case. He handles the publicity and the attention for the yellow jersey well. Bernal handled the Giro less well. with that stress around the leader’s jersey.”
“Pogacar does not flinch. He just continues to perform at a level and that is really sublime for such a young rider.”
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