Van der Poel to miss opening days of road altitude camp after spectacular falls in Nové Město cross country race, in race to recover for Dauphiné and Tour de France.
UPDATE Monday: Mathieu van der Poel fractured his wrist after falling twice at the Nové Město UCI mountain bike World Cup, team Alpecin-Deceuninck confirmed.
Officials were hesitant to put a timeline on MVDP’s recovery in their update Monday.
There were some initial fears that scheduled starts at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June and even the Tour de France in July could be in jeopardy, though the 30-year-old should have time at his side.
Alpecin-Deceuninck Cycling Team update on X
Mathieu van der Poel and his
high-profile return to the mountain bike bit the dust early Sunday.
The Dutchman crashed twice before he abandoned in the third lap of the UCI World Cup race in Nové Město.
Footage from the opening minutes of the race shows MVDP being squeezed into the fencing before he tumbled to the dirt. Not long later, cameras catch Van der Poel stubbing his front wheel and flipping over his bars in spectacular fashion.
It was a somersault that looked horribly similar to his disaster, race-ending crash at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
He called it quits at lap three, looking scuffed up.
Van der Poel’s condition remains uncertain after his crash, with Alpecin-Deceuninck confirming Monday he would undergo further medical checks at the hospital in Belgium.
The Dutchman had originally planned to head straight back to a high-altitude training camp, and some are concerned that injuries might be more serious than first believed and perhaps cast a pall over his Tour de France campaign, according to
Het Nieuwsblad.
It was the worst return to cross country racing possible for Van der Poel, who’s
chasing a “YOLO” cross country world title at the championships in Valais this September.
The Alpecin-Deceuninck superstar hadn’t raced on the fat tires for two years before Nové Město. His team manager Christoph Roodhooft admitted this week the 30-year-old only trained twice on his MTB ahead of this weekend’s race.
Van der Poel will now throw the mountain bike back into the store room for some time.
Next on his agenda is the Tour de France in July, where he’s expected to play leadout de luxe for sprint king Jasper Philipsen. He’s expected to fully focus on the smooth surfaces through early summer before he goes all-in on MTB in August.
Alpecin-Deceuninck had confirmed this week that MVDP will race the Critérium du Daphiné in June ahead of
Le Tour.
Hopefully his return to the road for the first time since he won Paris-Roubaix in April runs a little smoother than things did Sunday in Nové Město.
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