Mathieu van der Poel has returned to his favoured training base of southern Spain in order to fine-tune his form ahead of the Tour of Flanders.
The Classics star won E3 Saxo Classic on Friday before playing a starring role at In Flanders Fields on Sunday, but he will skip Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen in favour of training in sunny Spain.
Van der Poel in fact set off right after the finish of In Flanders Fields, where he animated the race in a two-up attack with his old foe Wout van Aert before slotting back into the bunch and watching his teammate Jasper Philipsen take the spoils.
Van der Poel headed straight to the Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport, just a stone's throw from the finish line, where his private jet was waiting for him.
"Last preparations in Spain for the Holy Week," Van der Poel wrote in a social media post alongside footage of him walking towards his plane.
Holy Week refers to the stretch that sees the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix take place on consecutive Sundays.
Van der Poel has a training base in south east Spain, near Calpe, where he regularly trains over the winter. He has occasionally in the past broken away from the Classics in northern Belgium and France to spend a mid-week in Spain, such as in 2024 when he was in Spain between Flanders and Roubaix.
His decisions are usually weather dependant. Last year, he had a long stretch between E3 and Flanders but opted to stay in Belgium, where it was warmer and drier than usual.
The weather forecast in northern Belgium doesn't look too bad. There's little rain or wind forecast, apart from on Monday, but the temperatures barely rise into the double digits Celsius. Calpe shows sunny skies and temperatures in the high teens all week.
In terms of his form, Van der Poel doesn't have much ground to make up. He said he felt a little fatigued at In Flanders Fields, but that had something to do with his mammoth solo victory at E3 on Friday. He was very nearly caught, and he was made to look human, but he later revealed he recorded a personal record 90-minute power output of 446 watts.
Alpecin-Premier Tech have confirmed to Cyclingnews that Van der Poel will return to Belgium on Friday. He will join his teammates for a short recon ride as well as his pre-race duties on the Saturday, before aiming for a record fourth Tour of Flanders title on Sunday.
As for his rivals, almost all will remain in Belgium, with Van Aert racing Dwars on Wednesday. But his biggest adversary will also be flying in later in the week, with defending Flanders champion Tadej Pogačar dropping onto the cobbles for Flanders and Roubaix after his Milan-San Remo victory just over a week ago.
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