The 2023 Tour de Flanders men had much to celebrate, including a brilliant performance by Tadej Pogachar and a fourth consecutive podium for Mathieu Van der Poel: Team DSM's tactics at Corte Caire with 126km remaining.

John Degenkolb and his four teammates gathered in front of the peloton with the early breakaway group holding a six-minute lead and moving at such a slow pace that the riders in the back were forced to put their feet down. He then accelerated rapidly at the top.

Van der Pol sarcastically tweeted "Chapeau Team DSM" on the video of this moment, and commentators criticized this tactic, which Trek-Segafredo employed on the same climb at Doir door Hlaanderen. The move added to the stress in the peloton, forcing the riders to take risks as they scrambled to close the gap created by the whiplash-like acceleration. Eddy Merckx called this "dangerous."

Cycling News columnist Fabian Cancellara also noted this tactic and the absence of Team DSM riders at the top of the results table.

"As a footnote, DSM had a pretty special move. But in the end, DSM was not visible at all.

Such tactics are relatively new, and Sporza noted that Team Sky is employing them in the 2019 Tour de Flanders.

John Degenkolb mentioned the team's move in his post-race comments. The team lost a long battle to get into the breakaway group and "so we focused on positioning going into the critical moments of the race and tried to control the speed in the same way that Trek-Segafredo did at the same point on Wednesday (Dwars door Hlaanderen). It was also a chance to save energy for later.