Mathieu van der Poel acknowledges back pain as 'achilles heel': "This has been going on for almost two years now, since that fall at the Tokyo Games"

Mathieu van der Poel has had a striking moment in his career at the 2021 Olympic Games where he crashed in the XCO mountain bike race. Ever since he's suffered with waves of back pain which has prevented him from being at his best, including present time.

"This has been going on for almost two years now, since that fall at the Tokyo [Olympic] Games," van der Poel told Het Nieuwsblad. "Something must have gone wrong there that we didn’t notice at the time. I still can't say what exactly is causing the pain."

The Dutchman hinted at Olympic Gold in Tokyo, but crashed on the opening lap in a drop where he was surprised by the lack of a wooden feature. Although he was able to soon resume competition, with good results, the 2021-2022 winter was a complicated one.

He abandoned his second cyclocross race of the season with back pain, and was soon advised to take a whole month off the bike to recover. Miraculously, he managed to resume training and regain enough form to win the Tour des Flandres that spring.

Although it had been a long time since the Dutchman seemed better, with a lot of work done in the background, the last few weeks have seen van der Poel once again complain of his back.

"[I hope] I can at least fight a duel with Van Aert at full strength, but the pain is there again. This will probably remain my Achilles heel," he continued.

"Not on the road, I'm not afraid of that, but in cyclocross and maybe also in mountain biking. I still hope to continue on the mountain bike until the Olympics in Paris, but if my back continues to hurt, like I’ve already said, I might not," van der Poel concluded.