Mathieu van der Poel could skip the Tour de France next year to enable him to focus on other major summer goals, including winning the mountain bike cross-country world title in the Valais, Switzerland.
The Dutchman has endured three underwhelming editions since making his Tour debut during the Covid-hit season in 2021, in which he took a stage win on the Mûr-de-Bretagne in Brittany and pulled on the yellow jersey.
He has failed to match that same success in the years that followed but has flourished in the Classics. Van der Poel told Cycling Weekly at his team’s winter training camp in Spain that he is considering skipping the biggest road race of the season in order to turn his attention to other accolades that have previously eluded him.
The 29-year-old sighed when asked about the Tour next year, suggesting that if it was solely up to him then his priorities would lie elsewhere in the next twelve months. He also hinted that outside pressure from sponsors would factor into the team’s final decision making. The former world champion will also skip the road worlds in Kigali, Rwanda due to the course being tilted towards climbers like the winner in Zurich, Tadej Pogačar.
“It was also the same this year,” he said as he made clear that he wanted to miss the Tour. “I wouldn’t mind doing something else but I also understand that for our sponsors it’s also quite big for them so we’ll see.
“Anyway I think with the worlds in Kigali next year it’s possible to change things up and go for the mountain biking [world title] because I won’t have the worlds on the road, that isn’t a big goal, so maybe we can do something like that.”
Otherwise, Van der Poel’s season will remain largely unchanged with Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders being the central targets of the spring. The only difference will be that he will ride one of the two major early-season stage races beforehand - Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico - in order to fine tune his form.
Van der Poel’s victory at the E3 Classic in March marked only his second appearance of the season after he finished tenth at Milan-San Remo behind teammate Jasper Philipsen. The Dutchman admitted that spring this year couldn’t have been much better but he felt having extra racing miles in the legs, similarly to 2023, could help take him to another level once more.
“This year I’d prefer to do Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico first, one of those two I think,” he said. “I did that in the past. This year it was a bit difficult but I’d prefer to have some racing in the legs before the Classic races start.”
The former world champion has won two consecutive editions of Paris-Roubaix, a race which is close to both his and his family's heart with their rich cycling heritage. A third would see him join an illustrious club consisting of Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara and Roger De Vlaeminck, who have all won the Hell of the North on three occasions.
Van der Poel will always tailor his season around the Flemish Holy Week of cycling and it seems almost inevitable that a third Roubaix title, to match his three victories in De Ronde, is just around the corner.
“You just dream and aim to win it once and if you can accomplish that then that’s super cool of course,” he said.
“It would be super nice to do it again, but also the Tour of Flanders. These are the two I love most and I really enjoy that period so they absolutely will be my main focus again this year. It’s also my big strength so I don’t see why I should change that. They’re the races I love most and I'm good at them so I’ll try to do that again this year.”
