Mathieu Van Der Pol has uploaded all of the data from his recent win at Strade Bianche to Strava.
This data reveals his tremendous performance and shows how much power he needed to win the early spring classic race. It also gives us an idea of the Dutchman's FTP and allows us to compare it to his rivals and previous races on the same day.
This is not the first time the Alpecin Phoenix leader has shared data through the platform; he famously uploaded data after winning the 2019 Amstel Gold, and more recently, when he won the KOM at the Petit Saint Bernard pass, the 2020 He suggested that he was in good shape for the season.
In the final stinging attack that separated Julien Alaphilippe (Detunink-Quickstep) and Eoghan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), Van der Pol reached 1,362 watts and kept putting out 1,105 watts for 15 seconds, then for the remaining 1 minute 23 seconds he climbed at an average of 556 watts.
He also pulled away from his eternal rival, Wout Van Art, as well as Tadey Pogachar, Tom Pidcock, and Michael Gogle, in his attack on Le Torfaix, running at 774 watts for 50 seconds, averaging 522 watts for 2 minutes and 25 seconds, and then peaking at 1,035 He peaked at 1,035 watts.
The pace did not slow down after that. For 18 minutes and 34 seconds from the attack to the finish, Van der Pol averaged 402 watts and ran 12.1 km at 39.2 km/h.
Judging from the zone distribution map attached to the data, Van der Pol's FTP is currently located around 420 watts. Thus, even though he averaged over 400 watts during the last part of this race, he had time to recover and prepare for the winning kick to Campo Square.
The race may have been won on these two accelerations, but there was a lot of work to be done in the preceding hours: during the 4.5-hour race, Van der Pol averaged 318 watts and a heart rate of 148 beats per minute.
The Strade Bianche route has two significant climbs: the first is an off-road climb from Salita BaƱa to Grotty. Van der Pol climbed this climb with the peloton, averaging 447 watts in 7:11.
The second, Montalcino, was the longest climb of the day. On this climb, the Dutchman averaged 376 watts over 14 minutes and 11 seconds, with a peak output of 889 watts.
Throughout the race, Van der Pol earned nine KOMs. One of these covered the last 25 km of the race, with one section covering the last 630 meters. Interestingly, however, despite an explosive final climb to Piazza del Campo, he only finished eighth, nine seconds slower than the time set by his teammate Petr Vakocic in 2016.
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