"It will be a good day to test my legs" - Mathieu van der Poel readies himself for biggest pre-World Championship challenge on stage 3 of Tour de Luxembourg

One of the fancied riders heading into the 2024 World Championship road race, Mathieu van der Poel has already impressed in his warmup at the Tour de Luxembourg, taking victory on stage 1 before coming home 2nd on stage 2. On stage 3 though, the biggest pre-Zürich test awaits.

"Tomorrow it will be almost impossible to control, but that will become clear," the Dutchman, who is the current race leader at the 2024 Tour de Luxembourg, previews in his post-stage 2 interview, having narrowly missed out on back to back victories in a sprint finale to Mads Pedersen. "I am curious about tomorrow's stage, which I expect to be the toughest. It will be a good day to test my legs. This week is perfect to prepare for Zurich."

The signs over the first couple of stages have been very positive for the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader though, despite his near miss on stage 2. "It went quite well today. The last five kilometres were very hectic and it also went super fast; that made it a difficult sprint," he reflected on the thrilling finale to the day's action. "All in all, I am happy with second place."

Given the fact a bout of illness has already wiped out half of Van der Poel's teammates however, it won't be easy for the race leader to keep his place at the top of the general classification on such a day of attrition as the upcoming stage 3. "We do what we can and besides, we are mainly here for stage wins," Van der Poel concludes. "Tomorrow we will see if we can control the stage. Today we managed that quite well."

2024 Tour de Luxembourg GC after stage 2