“I want to go to the World Championships as a leader” warns Van der Poel

Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who made his return to competition on Wednesday in Overijse after more than 40 days without a race, sees himself “as a leader” during the Road World Championships at the end of September in Australia. “I want to go to the World Championships as a leader (from the Netherlands team). The message is to gradually build up to Wollongong” on September 25, the 27-year-old Alpecin team rider told a group of journalists before the Race of the Grapes in which he finally took 35th place, 50 seconds behind Frenchman Matis Louvel, winner.

The grandson of Raymond Poulidor had left the Tour de France on July 13 in the 11th stage declaring himself “out of shape”. He hadn’t run since. “My poor performance in the Tour is a combination of several factors, he analyzed. I was tired after the Giro d’Italia. Then I did a training course at altitude in Livigno, which was perhaps a little too difficult. After the Tour and a period of rest, I did a lot of fitness. I haven’t trained very intensively on the bike yet but now I want to know where I’m at by racing.”added the winner of the last Tour of Flanders. “The idea is to arrive in good shape at the World Cup. We will assess things week by week in the run-up to this title race.said the four-time cyclo-cross world champion.

During the Race with Grapes on Wednesday, he was very active after halfway, often at the front of the peloton, but he didn’t have the legs to accompany the best in the final kilometers.