Jonas Rickaert received the combativity award after stage 10 of the Tour de France, compliments after the race, and a day he will never forget, but the Belgian from Alpecin-Deceuninck really had to dig deep for it. At Vive le Vélo, the normally reliable domestique explained on Sunday evening that his body was utterly exhausted after a duo attack with Mathieu van der Poel, who was eventually caught in the final kilometer by a sprinting peloton.
If they had both made it to the finish, Rickaert would have won. But the 31-year-old Belgian was so exhausted that he had to let Van der Poel go six kilometers from the finish line. That was no easy decision; he had no energy left in him. “The massage did me good, and it was necessary. Apparently, my stomach couldn’t handle the effort. I vomited five times. My clothes were a mess after the finish, but it was worth it.”
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Van der Poel says Rickaert deserved the winThe values were incredible; Rickaert also realized this after traveling more than 160 kilometers at full speed with an average speed of almost 50 km/h. “From kilometer 0 until Mathieu dropped me, I rode at an average of 386 watts, which is massive for me.” However, when he heard that van der Poel had just fallen short, he was a little disappointed. “In hindsight, I should have kept going because if we had stayed in front, Mathieu would have let me win.”
Rickaert’s body told the whole story, but what if he had pushed himself even harder and reached the finish line alongside van der Poel? The Dutchman’s comment had clearly made an impression. A stage victory would have been even better than just the prize for the most combative rider. “That wasn’t agreed, but he told me on the bus if only he’d said that ten kilometers earlier,” he laughed.
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International praise for Rickaert and Van der Poel: “Mind-blowing”Rickaert and Van der Poel’s actions earned them considerable praise. “There is no such thing as boredom in the world of Mathieu van der Poel,” wrote L’Équipe afterward. “That was also the case on Sunday, but it took the Dutchman, who had brought a friend along to feel less alone, more than 174 completely flat kilometers to discourage him. If he hadn’t won, he could at least have awarded the prize for combativity to his teammate Jonas Rickaert.”“The Belgian dreamed of a podium place and achieved it by being voted the most combative rider of the day. A consolation prize after a day of futile efforts on roads that are not suited to this kind of madness.” Marc Sergeant couldn’t believe his eyes either. “During the stage, I asked myself several times what I was looking at. This performance was mind-blowing,” he said in his column for Het Nieuwsblad.