"Something went wrong with the altitude training camp after the Giro" - Mathieu van der Poel on Tour de France disappointment

Mathieu van der Poel was hoping to race the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double this year, however in the second Grand Tour of the season he found serious difficulties and a notable lack of form which saw him abandon as the race reached the high Alps.

In conversation with NOS at a post-Tour criterium where he's returned to competition, van der Poel stated: "I especially think that something went wrong with the altitude training camp after the Giro towards the Tour". With no racing between the two events, the Dutchman decided to focus on his training, and had a stint at altitude in Livigno before the start of the Tour de France.

"I didn't feel like I came out of the Giro completely empty - quite the opposite. But my body was still recovering and it didn't recover sufficiently at altitude," he explained. Although he finished a strong fifth place at the initial time-trial in Copenhagen, he soon found himself without the legs to compete for the win on the punchy stages of the opening week, and his form only seemed to go down in the second week - where he pulled the plug on stage 11.

"If you do that [altitude training] after a Grand Tour, if you may need more recovery than you think, it may be that your body comes out of the altitude training sooner rather than later," he said. "I'm not one hundred per cent sure, but I have the feeling that it has something to do with that".

The team had been looking for an explanation for the underperforming, it may have came down to poor recovery after the Giro where he was constantly on the attack, and the fatigue build up caused issues onwards. Van der Poel recovered and is now eyeing the final third of the season with clear sights on the World championships.