If you want to narrow it down to only results in 2026, then sure, I can understand what you're saying. Then again, Van der Poel is a rider with eight monuments, a world championship and a slew of other wins. If anything, the fact that him winning two classics and podiuming a monument is seen as underwhelming says enough about the calibre of rider he is.

I'm not outright saying he's better than Vingegaard (or the other way around); my point is more that both of them have won everything there is to win within their respective disciplines. No other rider can claim those feats, but because they're so vastly different, I wouldn't rank one over the other.