Mathieu van der Poel heeft een ritje op Strava gepost - de eerste sinds hij een streep zette door het veldritseizoen. Een halfuurtje op Zwift, maar dat is een halfuur meer dan niks.
Mathieu van der Poel returns to the bike after injury setback
CyclingTuesday, 01 February 2022 at 18:17
Mathieu van der Poel has had an eventful weekend, after showing the first signs of recovery after a lengthy recovery process.
His father Adrie van der Poel stated last week that Mathieu had been told to take complete rest, "He's doing okay. He can ride again when he is pain free, but right now he's just sitting at home on the couch. There is not much he can do, he has been prescribed strict rest and he has to stick to it." Over the last few months the multi-disciplined expert has been ongoing back issues, more specifically swelling on an invertrebal disc. The issues began after his crash in the XCO Olympic race however it is unclear if that's what caused them, later he abandoned a team training camp in La Plagne but finished off the season with a win in the Antwerp Port Classic and a podium at Paris-Roubaix.
He was set to target the cyclocross World Championships in the 30th of January but his plans were cut short when during the Heusden-Zolder round of the Telenet Superprestige cup he abandoned quoting back issues.
At the same time, this sunday he was unable to make the trip to Fayetteville to defend his world champion's title in cyclocross. His compatriot Lars van der Haar almost kept the jersey in the Netherlands' shoulders, but there was little that could be done against Tom Pidcock who dominated the fast track and became world champion for the first time.
As Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld pointed out, his return to the bike was short with a 33 minute ride on training platform Zwift. However, this may be a small step in the walk that will be the Dutchman's rehabilitation journey.
Since this ride was posted, van der Poel has shared on Strava another two rides on Zwift which have totalled up to two hours of riding. Wether the Dutch prodigy will recover and make up for lost training hours in time for the classics is a risky guess, but he has in the past proven to be capable of incredible achievements. He does not yet have a racing schedule outlined, however within the next few weeks it is expected that the team will release an update on his condition.
claps 0visitors 21
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Most of these have nothing to do with rider safety or are completely unachievablevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Depends on how fast the Cipressa would be beforehand and in what condition Philipsen would bevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Some things sound crazy until they aren't, what if he's actually right? 🤷vappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Why make a comment to state the obvious? Of course MvdP is much better at CX than Pogacar, does anyone doubt that But that wasn't his pointvappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- If you look at road alone obvi Pogacar is the better rider. But maybe MVDP is the better overall rider since he can win in three plus disciplines?mobk23-12-2024
- Correction on 2021 Olympics. It was mainly the Dutch ladies who didn’t know who was leading the race. Other teams like the Germans and Italians knew that Kiesenhofer was out front.mobk23-12-2024
- A champion turning into a sore loser. Or is he on coke again?
UltimateOpportunist23-12-2024 - If you look at the major races they’ve both been in, van der Poel had the early edge as lately Pogacar has had the advantage. It’s all on procyclingstats.RidesHills23-12-2024
- I wouldn’t assume Tadej can’t win at cross. He did a cross race, not a World Cup, a few years ago and crushed the field. It was a minor race. But he can win anywhere.mij23-12-2024
- I wonder what would happen if Pogacar attacked on the Cipressa instead of the Poggio in San Remo? Would MvdPoel still be able to follow?Ride197423-12-2024