Mathieu van der Poel's coach: "He will continue to try to win a Tour stage, but he is riding with other goals in mind"

Mathieu van der Poel has had a very underwhelming Tour de France in 2023 when it came to individual results but it turned out to be perfect preparation for the World Championships right after. The Alpecin-Deceuninck may be on the same track for the Olympic Games this year, but he continues to chase a victory at the Tour after in the past he has achieved this.

"The term gravel stage is used and then it's as if everyone is filling in Van der Poel. But that's not how it works. We are now also in a Grand Tour and that is a difference from the one-day races," Alpecin-Deceuninck's head of performance Kristof de Kegel told De Avondetappe. "Then he is the best there is on his terrain, but in a Grand Tour the [overall] classification riders come along and that is just a completely different approach."

This is what we managed to see with Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar attacking the race several times, and the ultra-protected Jonas Vingegaard being the rider who most managed to match them. Something that in a race such as Paris-Roubaix or Strade Bianche would be unthinkable, taking into consideration Mathieu van der Poel was just a few wheels behind. Riders are in very different kinds of form, preparation and team protection focus.

Last year he was the perfect leadout man for Jasper Philipsen but this has ultimately not been the case in this Grand Boucle, with most leadouts in fact being deemed innefective in the final kilometer of the highly contested sprinters. Furthermore, Philipsen has not managed to win a stage and is far from Biniam Girmay's current lead in the points classification. Van der Poel continunes to build form in the meantime.

"He will continue to try to win a Tour stage, but he is riding with other goals in mind. In this case the Olympic Games," de Kegel assures. "The Games are one of the big goals. To say that the Tour is a preparation race is a bit of an oversimplification, but he is getting into shape for the Games for a small part."

Safe to say the Tour is far from an ideal race for a rider like van der Poel, who has very few chances of succeeding in stages that just do not suit him. The day on gravel roads was the best, and he showed form by attacking from the peloton late in the day, but his group could not reach the day's breakaway and contest for the stage win. "Only, he has also gotten into a shape here that he wants to show himself in at least the second part of the Tour."

Paris is his main goal: "We all think that it is a nice course for him, but it is a race that still has to be raced first. We can also do our bit, because there is good cooperation between us and the KNWU (Dutch national team, ed.) so that we can take the routines with us."