Amstel Gold Race Director Leo van Vliet has firmly denied that the leading organization’s car had any impact on the outcome of Sunday’s greatest classic in the Netherlands.
Tadej Pogačar, the clear pre-race favorite after his stunningly successful 2023 season to date, dominated the action with a spectacular solo win.
After launching several attacks, the Slovenian finally broke away alone with 29km to go, dropping the last two riders who managed to tail him, EF Education-Easypost’s Ben Healy and Ineos Grenadiers’ Tom Pidcock.
The organization car with Van Vliet in it passed Pogačar when he was 20 seconds behind Healy with 10 kilometers to go. At the finish, the gap between Pogačar and Healy was 38 seconds.
TV footage showed the race official’s car staying close to Pogačar immediately after the overtake, causing an uproar among some social media users and some pointedly sarcastic comments from EF manager Jonathan Vaughter.
“Quality work by the organizers of the #AGR23 race… Motor speed races (Derny) on the circuit are always the most exciting. So guess they’re hitting the road now,” Vaughters wrote on Twitter.
However, Van Vliet angrily dismissed claims that the time the director’s car spent just short of Pogačar was one kilometer long in any case. He insisted the race car had no choice but to stay in front of Pogačar for a short time for safety reasons.
“We were driving behind Tadej Pogačar and Ben Healy was getting closer, so you have to pass,” he told AD newspaper.
“It’s not true at all [that the car was in front for a kilometre]. Look at the TV pictures. It didn’t help him. I also raced myself. I can not imagine that [it offered an advantage].
“Why should it do me any good to do that?” he added. “We were way ahead of him. There’s nothing wrong there.”
Van Vliet pointed out that as race director he knew the road narrowed shortly after and that putting more distance between himself and Pogačar sooner would have been dangerous.
He pushed back the idea that he would rather have Pogačar as the winner than Healy.
“Let her say that. It’s not my fault,” he said.
The race official’s car seemed to give Pogačar a slipstream advantage (Image credit: Eurosport)
Pogačar and Vaughters have their say
Pogačar himself was questioned about the incident in the post-race press conference, and he realized the car had been too close.
However, he pointed out that the supervising director’s car pulling by was the kind of maneuver that happens in all races, not just the Amstel Gold Race. He also supported Van Vliet’s claim that it wasn’t all that long ago.
“In one moment they were really quite close. I think it’s not nice, but they do it all the time, they’re ahead, they’re overtaking, they’re going back. That’s how it is in the races,” said Pogaćar.
“There’s not a lot I can do, I can always ride as hard as I can, but I don’t think it was too much time up front, too close.”
Vaughters wrote on Twitter, conceding that even if Healy had managed to regain contact with Pogačar, he likely would have lost in the sprint. Five days earlier at Brabantse Pijl, that is exactly what happened as Healy was easily outpaced by Dorian Godon (AG2R Citröen) after the two finished together.
But the EF EasyPost manager strongly argued that there was still cause for complaint.
“I should say something more productive and mature here: The problem is that we’re constantly seeing vehicles changing race results. Sometimes in our favour, sometimes not. It just gets annoying. Pog would probably have won in the sprint; NOT the point. It just denigrates racing. “
This year the organization of the Amstel Gold Race introduced new photo finish equipment to try and resolve potential controversy for a third consecutive year over determining the winner.
In 2021, Van Aert was finally declared the winner by a millimeter in a two-man sprint between Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and in 2022 Benoît Cosnefroy (AG2R Citröen) was wrongly awarded the win, only for it to finally take off Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) leaves.
I should say something more productive and mature here: the problem is that we’re constantly seeing vehicles changing race results. Sometimes in our favour, sometimes not. It just gets boring. Pog would probably have won in the sprint; Not the point. It just denigrates racing. https://t.co/QNAQKdsyJDApril 16, 2023
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