Mathieu van der Poel is one of the most talented cyclists on the planet and he has proven that once again today. He has become World Champion in his third discipline. The Dutchman won the Gravel World Championships this Sunday in style and has taken on another rainbow jersey.
"It was a big goal for me. It's super nice to add another rainbow to the collection in another discipline as well, I'm super happy with this one. It's super nice also to finish the season like this, it's amazing," van der Poel said in a post-race interview. He was the main favourite to win today, and he sealed the deal with a stellar performance that included attacks all throughout the afternoon, just as he likes.
"I wanted to make the race as hard as possible because I knew that in the local lap, with a big group, it could be a difficult situation for me," he explains. It is a tactic that works for the explosive rider, who is used to this type of off-road racing. Eventually, amongst the many Belgians, he found an ideal attacking partner.
"So I tried to put everybody on the limit and when Florian Vermeersch went and we were the two of us, we had a good cooperation," he adds. However he will remember Vermeersch beat him in the sprint of the 2021 Paris-Roubaix, so he knows that he couldn't settle with taking the race to a sprint after such a hard event.
"You never know. My legs were also hurting, I tried one last time on the final hard part of the course and found myself alone so it's always nice to celebrate like this," he concluded. Van der Poel will take time to debut this jersey - the same way he hasn't yet debuted his cyclocross world champion's jersey - but he will eventually show off as he is clearly one of the best riders in the discipline. "Like I said I enjoyed it and I'm super happy with the title".
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