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The 26-year-old waltzed to an emphatic victory at the Italian semi-Classic on Saturday with a deadly attack on the final Via Santa Caterina climb into Siena with some saying his final attack was so powerful 'it could have propelled him to the Moon'.
practically measley
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The team released some of the stats behind Van der Poel's winning victory which also revealed his heart rate hit an incredible 186bpm on the final climb, too.
And astonishingly, despite that surge of pace on the final climb, Van der Poel did not even manage to grab the Strava King of the Mountain, with his climbing time of 1 minute 45 seconds falling nine seconds shorter than teammate Petr Vakoc's efforts in 2016.
Alpecin-Fenix also showed Van der Poel's power numbers for the final 60km of racing, most of which was spent in a lead group that included Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Michael Gogl (Qhubeka-Assos) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates).
ProCyclingStats
On the gravel sector of Le Tolfe, where Van der Poel launched his first big attack, he averaged 738W for 60 seconds, a move that could only be followed by Alaphilippe and Bernal.
Furthermore, Van der Poel's average wattage for the entire 4 hours 45 minutes of racing across 186km was 389W, 5.1W/KG for the entire race, something most amateurs would struggle to hold for a minute.
While it is slightly disappointing that claims Van der Poel hit '1 million watts' turned out to be fake news, there is no denying that he is the strongest rider in the peloton right now.
And the bad news for his rivals is that Van der Poel believes he can hold this incredible form 'for the next month'.
