"It started with a small joke..." - Jonas Rickaert fulfils dream of reaching Tour de France podium thanks to Mathieu van der Poel's teammwork
Cycling
Jonas Rickaert might not have been able to win the day on stage 9 at the 2025 Tour de France, but thanks to some heroic teamwork with Mathieu van der Poel, the long-time domestique got the chance to live out a childhood dream and stand on the podium of the sport's most iconic race at the end of the day.
Now 31 years old, Rickaert has spent the last five and half years selflessly working in service of Van der Poel and fellow superstar team leader Jasper Philipsen. After mentioning how he dreamed of having the chance to shine himself at a post-stage 8 dinner, Van der Poel then immediately set about putting the wheels in motion to get his domestique on the podium.
Attacking from kilometre zero on stage 9, it worked out perfectly as Rickaert and Van der Poel were left alone together in a two-man break. Incredibly strong riders, they almost pulled off the impossible too, with Van der Poel only caught inside the final kilometre. As mentioned though, the big goal of the day arguably wasn't the stage win, it was getting Rickaert onto the podium.
"My goal to be once on the Tour podium is achieved!" Rickaert beamed in his post-stage interview, having been awarded the prize of most combative rider for stage 9. "It was super hard today. It started with a small joke and it got more and more serious. We planned it. Yesterday I said I would like to be on the podium of the Tour and Mathieu said we go at the front the two of us."
"We thought the others would never let us go but they did," he continues. "I think they thought we would go until the intermediate sprint but the goal was to go to the finish. We tried and we almost succeeded. When the gap came down to 40 seconds, we thought it was over but somehow we got 1’20’’ again and then you have to start believing. We went for it."
Now, not only does Rickaert has a lifelong dream checked off for his bucket list, he also has a new picture to frame and put on his wall of memories at home to look back on when he retires. "I have a picture at home from a similar effort with Geraint Thomas in the Eneco Tour," concludes Rickaert warmly. "Now I’ll hang one with Mathieu next to it."
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
claps 8visitors 8
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
Loading
3 Comments