Mathieu van der Poel heads back to Spain for his final preparation for Tour de France 2025

The Tour de France 2025 is practically just around the corner. The main stars who will star in the Grande Boucle have already begun their final preparations for the three-week long race. Among them of course one of the main adepts to wear yellow in first week - Mathieu van der Poel.

The Alpecin-Deceuninck superstar managed to ride a great Criterium du Dauphiné, not showing any signs of consequences of his recent wrist injury. As a result, the anticipation of seeing the Dutchman in a very ambitious version within the Tour is growing.

To begin his final training for the Tour de France, Van der Poel has returned to his comfort zone. In Calpe, Alicante, the reigning Paris-Roubaix and Milano-Sanremo winner met up with training partner Freddy Ovett.

Van der Poel's first training session for the Tour de France was 113 kilometers. It was not complicated at all for the Dutchman. It was just a ride to slowly start to get back to his legs after all the accumulated fatigue from the Dauphiné.

The pace, moreover, was quite relaxed, at 32 km/h. Little by little, he will be stepping up his pace, surely with the goal of wearing the yellow jersey during the first week of the Tour de France.

But, of course, Mathieu van der Poel's main goal, besides taking some wins of his own, will be the same as in recent years. Jasper Philipsen dominated the Tour de France in 2023, where he took the points classification, with the Dutchman as the main helper in the sprints.

In 2024, Philipsen's pride was wounded, when Biniam Girmay snatched the throne from him. Regaining it is on the priority list for Alpecin and the Belgian, and everyone will need the best version of Van der Poel to do so.