“Let’s not discourage that” - Dutch Olympic champions mock UCI over Mathieu van der Poel’s shirtless Tour de Suisse fine

Mathieu van der Poel’s 500CHF Tour de Suisse fine was meant to punish a hot-seat image problem. Instead, the moment has now become a punchline beyond the peloton.

The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider was sanctioned after sitting bare-chested in the hot seat following the stage 4 time trial in Aarburg.

Van der Poel had rolled down the upper half of his skinsuit after a full-gas effort in 34C heat, then watched Tadej Pogacar beat him by just 0.04 seconds.

Naomi van As and Ellen Hoog, both two-time Olympic hockey champions, discussed the incident on the Sportnieuws.nl podcast and found little sympathy for the UCI’s decision.

The only issue Van As and Hoog could understand was the commercial one. Van der Poel was on camera for an extended period without the sponsor exposure Alpecin-Premier Tech would usually expect from one of cycling’s biggest stars in the hot seat.

“What would the sponsor think of it?” Hoog asked. “I could still imagine that, but that has nothing to do with the UCI. I could sooner imagine the sponsor giving him a fine, having a problem with it.”

Van As put the rider’s condition first. “But then you would think, as a sponsor, put yourself for one moment in the athlete’s shoes, who is absolutely dying from the heat,” she said.

Van der Poel had looked on course for a rare time-trial victory before Pogacar edged him at the finish. He was still sitting in front of the cameras when the result came through, bare-chested after trying to cool down from the effort.

“Van der Poel had ridden a time trial and it was unbelievably hot there, 34 degrees,” Van As said. “You obviously go very hard when you ride a time trial. And yes, he just took his stuff off, because he was overcome by the heat. He was sitting in the hot seat because he had the fastest time, so he was on screen the whole time with his upper body bare. The UCI could not appreciate it and gave him a fine of 500 Swiss francs or something like that.”

Hoog opened the podcast discussion by laughing at the punishment, saying: “Ridiculous that half-naked Mathieu van der Poel gets a fine!”

Van As quickly agreed. “Yes, of course I think that is ridiculous. As fans, we obviously like seeing him without a shirt.” Hoog then added: “Please, let’s not discourage that.”

Van As pushed the joke further when discussing the logic of the fine. “If you give a fine, then give a real fine,” she said. “But this makes absolutely no sense. He is obviously thinking, okay, fine. And next time he will sit there completely naked.”

Hoog replied: “Would you then get two fines, if you also had your trousers off?”

Van der Poel left Aarburg with second place by the smallest official margin of the race and an unexpected fine. Pogacar went on to win the Tour de Suisse overall, but the shirtless hot-seat moment has lasted as one of the week’s strangest side stories.