Wout Van Aert Is Through!

Round Two, Match Eight: Remco Evenepoel v. Thibaut Pinot

Remco Evenepoel Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Thibaut Pinot Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Round One, Match Nine: Eli Iserbyt v. Mads Pedersen

Eli Iserbyt Propaganda

small but fierce, he is my cyclocross boy and deserves more love.

First of all he's very small, so jot that down, secondly, he is currently winning everything in cyclocross even if he's unlikely to beat WvA and MvdP when they show up. Had offers to start doing road racing, but kept to what he likes and is good at, and I like that mentality. And he does so many races in cx, like he is everywhere all the time.

Mads Pedersen Propaganda

Simply go read an interview, he is immensely entertaining, and also the sprint he did in the Bemer Cyclassics gave me an adrenaline high that changed my brain chemistry. He betrayed his danish nation by moving away to Switzerland for tax reasons, but he's very open about it at least. Is described by teammates as a good guy and wears many silly Lidl outfits.

Funniest guy in the peloton, like listen to any interview with him. Has a grand tour grand slam (a victory in each grand tour). Look at those thighs. Number six on UCI ranking. Speedy guy. Keeps it real. Doesn’t die in hills as much as other sprinters imo. Just vote the guy, he’s great

Round One, Match Three: Mark Cavendish v. Wout van Aert

Wout van Aert Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Mark Cavendish Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Quarter-Finals, Match Two: Primož Roglič v. Tadej Pogačar

Primož Roglič Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Tadej Pogačar Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

We now have 32 submissions! I’ll still keep submissions open until tomorrow to allow more riders if anyone still wants to submit, but this means that no matter what we now have enough for the poll tournament to happen!

Hello everyone, little update:

We’ve had submissions open for a week now and 17 of the 32 slots have been filled. I will keep the submissions open for another week until next Sunday, and if we still don’t have enough we’ll go from there.

So if you have any cyclists you want to submit, shoot me a message on this account and we’ll get them in!

Round One, Match Four: Tom Pidcock v. Julius Johansen

Tom Pidcock Propaganda

Just look at the instagram profile for his dogs. That's all. Yes I suppose he races sometimes too, but more importantly, dogs.

Julius Johansen Propaganda

my Vuelta 2023 randomly assigned little guy to cheer for when we did that in the discord. It was memorable when he got to GC position 113 with a time of 13 hours and the start number 134: the number 13 is fitting because he is not a lucky guy. He got covid. He got to be in the Weird Vuelta we had this year. He's on Intermaché so he had to ride for Rui Costa. He crashes in weird ways such as in the latest Post Danmark Rundt, which he began by breaking his bike in half, forcing him to use his spare training bike for the rest. He then crashed into a family's lunch table and a haybale, drove into a curb, stuff like that. Maybe some of it is less bad luck and more a skill issue, but nevertheless he keeps being optimistic about his chances. He's currently without a contract for next year, but personally I think anybody should be glad to have him solely because he consistently has THE best hair in the peloton.

Tadej Pogačar is through!

Round Two, Match Four: Magnus Cort v. Tadej Pogačar

Magnus Cort Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Tadej Pogačar Propaganda

No propaganda submitted.

Neilson Powless is through!

Round One, Match Five: Neilson Powless v. Fabio Jakobsen

Neilson Powless Propaganda

I mean just look at how happy he was starting that many days in the polkadot jersey in the tour this year

Fabio Jakobsen Propaganda

how can you not love a man getting back to such a good level after that harrowing crash. The drama of the 16 sec he had left in one of the mountain stages in the tour of 2022 was *chef's kiss*

Semi-Finals, Match Two: Matej Mohorič v. Jonas Vingegaard

Matej Mohorič Propaganda

YouTube

Post-race interview - Stage 19 - Tour de France 2023

The Tour de France 2023 will hold its Grand Départ in the Basque Country, with a first stage in Bilbao on 1st July, and will finish in Paris

Jonas Vingegaard Propaganda

He is CUTE, he is SMOL, he has a CUTE NOSE and FRECKLES and EYES AS BLUE AS THE ENDLESS SKY---

OK no but seriously, he's amazing. As absurd as it can sound since this is one of the best riders in the world, he's always the underdog in people's minds. Somehow, no one ever thinks "OK I think Jonas is going to win this stage today", and when he does, they're like "OK he won but he still wasn't out of this world, it's because the others were having a bad day", and when he has a stellar day they're like "HE'S DOPING FOR SURE". It's like nothing he ever does is good enough and YET he doesn't give a fuck and keeps performing despite the pressure.

Being consistently good when everyone expects you to win is talent, but being consistently good when everyone hopes you'll lose is something else too.

And he's an incredible human being to boot. He's kind, he's compassionate, he's sensitive, he doesn't have a mean bone in him, he's affectionate, thoughtful. Remember that time during TdF 2022 when he asked Grischa to tell him if he could slow down at the end of the TT to let Wout win the stage? Yeah. He's that kind of guy.

More under the cut:

He's a crier. It's cute and it makes me want to hug him. He loves his family and he always has a good word for his rivals and he's humble and I relate so much to his introverted personality and he's a cinnamon roll and a cutie patootie. But when he puts on his sunglasses, he looks like A WAR MACHINE.

(but a cute one)

He got a lot of heat when he didn't wait for Sepp on the Angliru during this Vuelta, only the instructions of the team before that clusterfuck stage were to battle it out between them and he probably liked it even less than us because he wanted Sepp to win the Vuelta from the beginning.

And need I say anything about the absolute sportsmanship of this man? When he lost his balance in the Col of Spandelles, TdF 2022, Tadej didn't miss the opportunity and powered away from him, but when Tadej was the one who crashed two minutes later, he waited for him. HE WAITED FOR HIM.

And he made the sport all the better for it and gave us one of the finest images in cycling history.

if you like MvDP, consider that though in these days when van der Poel is showing up with a mullet, Jonas did long hair earlier and better.

though there has been a change of style

If you like WvA, consider that some of the BEST hug pictures only exist due to Jonas being the kind of teammate whom others want to hug AND eminently sized for hugs/lifts

(we've all seen this but we can look at it again)

He's got sportsmanship. He's got incredible skills. He's even a dad! Maybe he's not always good at smiling for the cameras but he can sure smile for his family

Most importantly, he's a TdF winner with the time trial of the year and he cannot ride his goddamn bike without hands without his body language screaming oh god someone help me

Mattias Skjelmose is through!

Round Two, Match Six: Simon Geschke v. Mattias Skjelmose

Simon Geschke Propaganda

Personal: Simon Geschke is an old man with a magnificent beard, born in East-Berlin (a soft pisces with a fiery aries moon, we stan a king) and despite living in the south of Germany for a while now he never lost his perfect accent and his dry pragmatic way of looking at the world. He is vegan and has a french bulldog (which...okay...), and his favorite hobby is fiddling with his Schwalbe, a vintage GDR scooter.

Professional: The son of a track cycling world champion probably learned to bike before he learned to walk. Now he rides for Cofidis as a mountain specialist and helper for Guillaume Martin. Biggest moment was gaining the polka dot jersey in the 2022 Tour de France. He held it for nine days and did a special and adorable video for KIKA, the kid's channel, where he counted all the dots on the jersey for the kids. There are 75 dots. Here is the video:

Mattias Skjelmose Propaganda (provided by poll-runner)

Personal: He’s a super lovely guy with an adorable smile, looks like an elf, likes a cheeky bit of gossip and has no filter, great friends with Mads Pedersen.

One time he crashed and fell 15m down a ravine, climbed back up himself and yelled “I’m fine, just give me a new bike” which is just. Insane to me

Professional: He’s had a really interesting journey as a rider. He was on top of the world as a junior, rivalling Remco Evenepoel, but was a total dick. Then he got banned for doping because he took some contaminated dietary supplements. Came back a year later and then signed to Trek-Segafredo (much to the irritation of Mads Pedersen, who knocked on Mattias’ hotel room door and asked him why he should believe he had changed, but found himself pleasantly surprised by the type of guy Mattias now was) and now he’s thirteenth on the individual UCI ranking. Rouleur did a great article on him:

Rouleur

Mattias Skjelmose never gives up

This article was originally published in Issue 117 of Rouleur magazine.  I first met Mattias Skjelmose in the spring of 2018. He was 17 year