Mathieu van der Poel "should have very little or no pain anymore" to comeback to racing, says father Adrie

After getting back on the bike at the beginning of February, Mathieu van der Poel has slowly been building a base for the upcoming season and he will possibly be present in the spring classics. His father Adrie van der Poel has talked about his recovery process.

"Occasionally he still has a reaction, but what I do find reassuring is that he says it's not like it's been in recent years," he said, regarding Mathieu's lower back pain flares. "Sometimes that wasn't fun anymore. But when you're struggling on the bike, other things start hurting and you don't think about that injury, but that was not good."

"I don't know where to start, he should start when he's done. He should have very little or no pain anymore," he said regarding the return to competition from Mathieu on Sporza's Extra Time Koers TV show.

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Van der Poel has in the last few weeks been in the Calpe area where he has been putting in long hours in the saddle, which he is sharing publicly on Strava: "He is confortable there, he's very enthusiastic about the location where he is now, he will stay another two weeks. So he will not race for at least two weeks. It's been three of four weeks now, things are going well, but those training sessions are not the same as riding races of more than six hours with an average of 45Km/h. He also lacks toughness. His last decent race was actually last year's Tour, after that it went in stops and starts."

With a month exactly to go until Tour des Flandres, one and two weeks later having Amstel Gold Race and Paris-Roubaix, there is still time for the Dutch to build some form and possibly eye the finale of the classics season, if his health remains stable.