Mathieu van der Poel motivated with current form at Coppi e Bartali: "I was in good shape on that last climb"

The Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali is having a luxury startlist this year despite the collision with the cobbled classics and the Volta a Catalunya. Mathieu van der Poel is amongst the names in the race, and has finished the opening stage in fourth place. He takes motivation from it, and is ambitious towards the coming days of racing.

"It was tough because the racing was really very fast. I was in good shape on that last climb. After that it was a bit of a hope that they closed the gap," van der Poel said in a post-race interview. The Dutchman returned to competition at Milano-Sanremo this past weekend with a surprising performance that saw him finish in third place. He was initially set out to be at Coppi e Bartali to prime his form for the classics, and he will be facing a set of tough stages that are far from ideal for him, however he isn't too concerned about the results.

“They were two strong riders in the lead, who also got away at a difficult moment in the race. What I said, I couldn't do much but hope they would close it. How do I feel now? Well good. They rode really fast on the climbs and I'm happy with the feeling I had. On to tomorrow," he completed.

Van der Poel will have some opportunities to go for stage wins this week, but he will need to keep up with some strong climbers at times as all stages will have a lot of climbing associated with them.