It’s been eleven months since Mathieu van der Poel experienced his darkest hour as a professional cyclist. At the road world championships in Wollongong, Australia, the night before the start of the race, he got into an argument with some girls who were making noise in front of his hotel room and kept him from sleeping. There was a dispute, possibly also fisticuffs, at least van der Poel spent half the night in a police station.
His dream of winning the world championship was over for him, he still started, but soon got off his bike again. He felt in such good shape that he could have won, he was convinced of that. His rainbow jersey dream turned into a nightmare. That, he said on Sunday after winning the long-awaited world title in Glasgow a year late, was the first thing he thought of when he crossed the finish line alone. “What a beautiful revenge for what I experienced in Australia last year,” he said before tears came to his eyes. “I really wanted this jersey, it’s the culmination of my career.”
“You have to accept that”
How he got it, with what determination, with what start 22 kilometers from the finish, demanded the greatest respect from his last remaining competitors, the Belgian Wout van Aert, the Dane Mads Pedersen and the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar. Van der Poel simply let them, who all belong to the Champions League of cycling, stand and did not let a fall 16 kilometers from the finish line stop them. Pogacar, the two-time Tour winner, who finished half-fainted in third, called van der Poel’s performance “completely insane, so incredibly good”.
And the Belgian van Aert, against whom van der Poel competed hundreds of cross and road races since his youth, did not seem at all dissatisfied with the silver medal around his neck, contrary to his usual habit. “With Mathieu, the strongest won today, there wasn’t much that could be done, you have to be able to accept that.”
It was van der Poel’s day, it was his weather and it was his course, tough and relentlessly steep over and over again. If you want to understand why the 28-year-old Dutchman drives the way he does, you have to look at the winter months, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, where perhaps the toughest of all races are held. Not on the street, but off-road with modified street machines.
They are cross races lasting around an hour through dirt and dust, across meadows and sandy beaches, over tree stumps and roots. Extreme bike control and repeated explosive acceleration on short inclines are required. Van der Poel and van Aert mastered this hour at the absolute limit like no other driver of their generation. Van Aert was world cross country champion three times, van der Poel five times.
If you can ride at your own level for an hour in the dirt and snow like van der Poel (and van Aert), you can do the same for three hours on a part dry, part wet street circuit around Glasgow. And so, in the final hours of the race, this world championship in Scotland became a breathless spectacle with constant attacks, a permanent exchange of blows, until van der Poel rode the decisive attack at the most difficult part of the course just before Kelvingrove Park.
Bone hard starter on tour
What a beautiful idea the weather gods had, even a brief rainbow. It was one of those explosive performances that van der Poel used to win the World Cross Country Championships against van Aert in February. It was a statement of strength and will, born in the mud of winter cross racing. “It’s such a nice feeling,” said van der Poel later at the finish, “when you can set yourself apart from the best and they can’t follow you.”
Van der Poel is the first Dutch world champion since Joop Zoetemelk in 1985. And he is the first rider in cycling history to become world champion in both cross and road in one year. He also won the classics Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix this year. At the Tour de France, he helped his teammate Jasper Philipsen to win several stages as a rock hard starter.
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His own planning was not for stage wins but for the World Cup, to turn the Australian nightmare into a Scottish dream. The tour helped him with that. He first rode it in preparation for the World Championships, but wasn’t sure at first if it was a good idea. But after that. “Now I understand,” he says in Glasgow, “what everyone means when they say you come out of the tour with an extra gear. I had fantastic legs today.”