"Sometimes I just need to be a little patient" - No luck or results for Mathieu van der Poel at the Tour de Suisse

Mathieu van der Poel travelled to Switzerland where he is racing to prepare the Tour de France, however where he has not found opportunities to fight for a stage win. The Dutchman has not been allowed in breakaways whilst the stages have been attacked hard, above the pace he could hold on the climbs.

Stage 1 had him as a big favourite, but with Tadej Pogacar attacking with 70 kilometers to go on the day's hardest phase blew up the race, on terrain in which the Alpecin - Premier Tech rider could not keep up. Stage 2 saw the breakaway win, but the final sequence of climbs in the peloton was ridden at a very high pace from the very start, rendering the Dutchman's explosiveness useless in such a scenario.

Stage 3 was a chance for the breakaway. But in the peloton, no-one had the interest of seeing van der Poel up front. "They reacted pretty aggressively when I went. So I decided pretty quickly to save my energy and go for the sprint," van der Poel shared with AD.

In a modest sprinter field, he would stand a chance. But the breakaway was victorious once again, with Jhonatan Narváez taking the win. "It’s a shame we fell just short. In the end, we still came close. I’d already given up hope a bit with 20 kilometers to go". Behind, van der Poel was third from the peloton; fifth in the stage.

“It was also less hot. That made me feel much better right away. I’m satisfied. On the climbs at the start of the stage, I was able to keep up without any problems".

Stage 5 with the high mountains will obviously be out of van der Poel's range. This Saturday's time trial not so much, where he can realistically aim for a strong result in a field that also does not feature many specialists. "The plan is to go all out again on Saturday. We’ll see how I feel".

But ultimately, van der Poel will leave the Tour de Suisse without any notable result, heading into the Tour de France. “It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. We’ve also just come off a tough training camp, where we worked hard with the team. Everything went well there, but maybe I was feeling the effects of that. Sometimes I just need to be a little patient," he concluded.