Wearing the reigning world champion’s rainbow jersey, the 29-year-old Belgian isn’t so much the man to beat, as the man who almost cannot be beaten.
For cycling purists, the Tour of Flanders is an unofficial world championships, and last Sunday Van der Poel crushed all his rivals in the race.
He is already one of the all-time greats of one-day road cycling, and he was cheered over every cobble on the final 60km of his solo break and lauded by his current key rival Mads Pedersen on arrival.
“Mathieu was in his own league,” said the Danish Lidl Trek rider who shot to fame winning the Yorkshire world championships in 2019.
“He’s impressive. I just couldn’t follow him. And I’m at a loss as to how to beat him. I was at 100 percent.”
Van der Poel won two of cycling’s super-long five monuments in 2023, but in March, rather than protect his Milan-San Remo, Van der Poel led out teammate Jasper Philipsen who sprinted to victory.
Having passed up his chance to win the first monument of the season he has now won the following two in just two weeks.
“I could only have dreamed of this, but winning all these races while being world champion, is amazing,” Van der Poel said Sunday. He described his latest win as “a special moment, a cool day,” that won’t last forever.
Man for all seasons
Van der Poel also stars on the winter mud of cyclo-cross and won a sixth world championship in February.
On his first Tour de France in 2021, he settled a blood debt for his famous grandfather, French rider Raymond Poulidor, who never wore the leader’s yellow jersey despite eight final podium finishes.
On stage two, Van der Poel attacked repeatedly and escaped for good with a finishing rampage over the Mur de Bretagne to win the stage and take the overall leaders jersey, an honour Poulidor missed by a whisker so many times.
Against the odds, Van der Poel defended the Tour de France lead for six swashbuckling days.
His riding attracted a fresh generation of fans to the Tour de France, though some felt his style too aggressive and detractors said his all-in approach was distorting the usual strategy of the 21-day marathon.
Having originally said he would quit the Tour once he had lost the jersey, he instead completed it.
His fortunes took a nosedive in the mountain-bike competition at the Tokyo Olympics. He crashed on the first lap unaware that a ramp down from a rock, in place during practice, had been removed on the big day.
The subsequent back injury dogged his one-day campaign in 2022, but Van der Poel did win the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia, picking up his first-day Giro pink jersey.
Controversy struck in Australia when he was arrested overnight before the world championships at Wollongong in 2022 after chasing two teenage girls who had repeatedly woken him by knocking on his hotel door in a prank gone wrong.
He showed up at the start of the race after a sleepless night in a cell, but pulled out after an hour, leaving Australia under a cloud a few days later.
He won the world title in 2023 in Glasgow and dominated the one-day classics season before getting into hot water on the cyclo-cross circuit for spitting on an abusive fan.
Van der Poel is hammering his mark onto the 2024 season, but was planning a party Sunday.
“Today was my best day so far. I’m just happy,” he said at the Roubaix velodrome.
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