"My story is completely different from what has been told" - Mathieu van der Poel on World Championships altercation

Mathieu van der Poel has had a very difficult second half to the road season, one to forget with very few results to show for. He's now focused on 2023, but simultaneously he has responded to the questions regarding the altercation between him and two teenage girls in Wollongong.

“I think it’s just better for me to focus on one grand tour next year I never say never, but next year the focus will be on completing the Tour de France. It is almost certain that I will ride there," van der Poel revealed in a press conference this Friday. The Dutchman is starting his cyclocross season this weekend at the Hulst World Cup, and will be gearing towards the Hoogerheide World Championships. 

However he looked back on his season, where he thrived in the spring winning the Tour des Flandres and Dwars door Vlaanderen after having to stay a month off the bike in January. He won a stage and wore the pink jersey at the Giro d'Italia, which he completed, but he was not the same rider entering the Tour de France - which he abandoned with fatigue.

“I don’t really know the exact cause. It’s a combination of a number of things. I had never finished a Grand Tour, and afterward I didn’t feel very good. I just didn’t know what to expect then, so I went on an altitude camp anyway. I think the accumulation of those things caused me to not be that good after all," he responded. He managed to win the Grand Prix de Wallonie later in the year, but it was little consolation for a rider of his caliber.

At the World Championships the Netherlands suffered from crashes and mechanicals on both men and women at the Mixed Relay where he was eyeing a big medal, and the night before the road race he was involved in an altercation with two teenage girls who had been disturbing the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider and making noise in the hotel hallway.

“That was a sad incident. However, I moved past it very quickly. All I want to say about it is that there are two sides to the story and that my story is completely different from what has been told there," he said regarding the incident, which led to him being shortly arrested, and having to abandon the road race within just a few kilometers.