14/12/2022

Mathieu van der Poel's World Championships assault charges overturned

The Wollongong World Championships were a week to forget for Mathieu van der Poel, who has seen all of his races derailed, and left the country with assault charges following a hotel incident the night before the big race.

At the time, the Dutch rider was being bothered by two teenage girls in the hotel the Dutch team was hosted at. A video recorded has shown the altercation taking place, whilst it is reported that after the incident took place van der Poel was arrested for a few hours, but allowed to return to the hotel hours before the start of the road race - in which he was a big favourite, but abandoned in the opening kilometers.

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After seeing his teammates Annemiek van Vleuten and Bauke Mollema crash and have a mechanical respectively at the Mixed Relay TTT, the Alpecin-Deceuninck's chances of getting a medal were swept in the blink of an eye. Furthermore, he risked not being able to leave Australia due to the ongoing case, however he was allowed soon after. The situation was close to as bad as it could be, but the case is now closed.

According to ABC Australia van der Poel is serving a 12-month conditional release order, in which he must not commit any offense and must appear to a course if he is called. The conviction was overturned however, on the basis that he has already been punished over having his road race wrecked, and that he was no longer present in Australia.

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His lawyer Michael Bowe, who was present at the hearing, has told the Australian newspaper: “It was a great outcome, really good. No one wants to carry a conviction forward for the rest of your life when you’re of very good character. In my view, the convictions shouldn’t have been made, which was supported by the District Court."

“I ran the argument on the basis of the loss to Mathieu. He had one opportunity in his life to win the world championships and he’d lost that opportunity. He’d trained for that opportunity, he’d let his country down, he’d let his team down," he concluded.