"I'm starting to ride better and better" - Mathieu van der Poel growing in form and confidence at Tour de France

Mathieu van der Poel entered the Tour de France with only seven race days and after over two months without racing. After a successful cyclocross season and a massively successful sprint with victories at Tour de Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and assisting Jasper Philipsen to Milano-Sanremo victory... He took some rest and trained for the Tour, where he is growing in form.

“It’s another chance, which we will hopefully use. It’s especially nice that you have a goal in these kinds of stages. Without a sprinter, you don’t really have a goal. The nice thing is: with Jasper we have a contender," van der Poel told NOS at the start of the day. Philipsen is “good, I think. He hasn’t had the best feeling in this Tour yet, but today is another chance. We’re ready. The fall wasn’t too bad. He only has a graze on his buttock, so he got away well. Hopefully he’ll find his best sprint legs today.”

Both main pieces of the Alpecin-Deceuninck leadout crashed, on separate moments, on the finale of stage 3. Whilst Philipsen entered the Tour as the sprinter to beat for the points classification, the Belgian is actually only 8th in the points classification right now with 38 points, behind several riders. Van der Poel has been part of the breakaway on stage 4 in the mountains, a move that didn't have a stage win as a goal, but showed the World Champion was on rising form.

"I'm starting to ride better and better. Yesterday was surprisingly good," he stated this morning in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. "I had a pretty okay day. It wasn't really the intention to be in the breakaway. But it was going so fast and mentally I'd rather be in the front than in the back." From today onwards, we should see van der Poel at the front more often than over the first four stages of the race.