ROUBAIX – Mathieu van der Poel has put Olympic and world championship agony behind him in 2023, in a season already crowned with two of road cycling’s most treasured trophies.
The 28-year-old cross-discipline cycling champion ended the last season with an overnight stay at an Australian police station after a teenage prank at his hotel went horribly wrong during the world championships.
Before that, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider also got things painfully wrong at the Tokyo Olympics after failing to realise on a training ride that a ramp would be removed on the big day.
Flying downhill on the first lap of the mountain bike gold-medal race he injured his back on the section where the ramp had been removed.
But this season is turning out to be his crowning moment.
A recent triumph at Milan-San Remo, a narrow miss at the Tour of Flanders a week ago and Sunday’s convincing display at the Paris-Roubaix cobbled classic allowed him to collect a fourth triumph in epic one-day races known as the Monuments.
The straight-talking Dutch powerhouse denied he had drawn inspiration from his night in the Australian cell after he chased two teenagers back to their room following a persistent late-night knock-a-door-run prank.
Police were called and on the eve of what could have been his defining day, his best-laid plans lay in tatters.
“Australia was certainly a low point but I wouldn’t say I found inspiration in it,” said van der Poel, who was the favourite to win the men’s road race in Australia.
He showed up at the starting line without having slept or informed his team about what had happened, began the race but pulled out shortly after.
“I was ready for the worlds so what happened there was certainly a low point,” he conceded.
But he said that overcoming the incident on Mount Fuji at the Olympics was more important.
“Now I have my confidence,” he added.
“And my back problems are much better than they were. I’m riding without pain and I think this is the main difference.”
Reflecting on the gruelling 258km Paris-Roubaix classic on Sunday, he continued: “It’s my best classic season ever.
“That was my greatest moment on a bike.
“We race like juniors at full speed all day. To come into the velodrome alone was wonderful. I had the time to let it all sink in.”
Roubaix is a huge event in France and the race is one of five extremely arduous road races known as the Monuments.
He won the first one at Milan-San Remo a month ago before narrowly missing out on a third straight Tour of Flanders, seen in road cycling as an unofficial world championships.
The two others are the Ardennes forest run Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Lombardy in northern Italy. AFP
