Mathieu van der Poel not yet fully over illness, Alpecin boss says: "His recovery was not yet optimal"

Reportedly, Mathieu van der Poel got slightly sick after the E3 Saxo Classic and in the days that followed he was under some medication. This was kept in private and only revealed after the Tour of Flanders where he was defeated by Tadej Pogacar, and seemingly he is not yet back up to full health.

In words to Het Nieuwsblad, team manager Christoph Roodhooft has talked about the Dutchman's health: “Not completely yet. Mathieu stayed in Belgium, trained normally, but his recovery was not yet optimal. Probably also because of that Tour of Flanders. If you have just been ill, it stays with your body for longer. But anyway: Roubaix on Sunday. A new chance”.

The team remains very focused on the third monument of the season where van der Poel - alongside Jasper Philipsen and Gianni Vermeersch - will have to face once again Tadej Pogacar, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and many other top classics riders.

He is a two-time defending champion and last sprint he won with outstanding authority. Repeating such an achievement would have him be the first rider since Francesco Moser to win the Hell of the North on three consecutive occasions, and it would perhaps be his most meaningful due to the sheer level that will be at the race. His bike handling skills are a specialty that give him a big advantage in a race like this, and with the legs he showed in Flanders he would on paper be very capable of winning in Roubaix once again.

But his result in Flanders, where he was in the last step of the podium, was not something that stuck around his mind for too long, he says: "He was still third. But furthermore: if someone is better, Mathieu never has much trouble with not winning. And let's call a spade a spade, on Sunday someone was better."