"He's had enough of training": Alpecin boss excited to unleash Mathieu van der Poel in Namur

Nothing wrong with getting in some quality training kilometers in the winter. But as far as Mathieu van der Poel is concerned, he'd much rather prefer to get covered in mud while fighting his cyclocross up-close, rather than only having watch them on his TV. You can tell that the Dutchman has already had enough sunbathing in Spain when we saw him nearly crash during one of his training sessions. But fortunately for Van der Poel, he won't have to endure too many boring hours in the saddle anymore as his cyclocross debut in 2025/26 season is planned for this Sunday already.

Initially, the Belgian team announced that Van der Poel would for sure open his winter account on December 20 at the Antwerpen World Cup. Meanwhile, the participation in the Namur World Cup a week earlier was left open for a later decision. Whilst the possibility that Van der Poel would opt for an early start before the Christmas string of racing, there was always the odd chance that his team would convince its star to spend another week on training camp with spring in mind.

Nevertheless, there is no need for doubts anymore: "Good news, confirmed. Mathieu van der Poel feels race-ready enough to kick off his cyclocross season next Sunday at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Namur," his team confirmed last Friday, announcing the cyclocross king's arrival to defend his throne already at the traditional World Cup venue.

A race he's already won five times in his career (2015-2016 & 2018-2020).

But how's Van der Poel's preparation going, in the opinion of his Alpecin-Deceuninck team boss Christoph Roodhooft? "Mathieu is fine and has trained well. He hasn't ridden his cyclocross bike yet (at least until last week, ed.). That will probably be sometime next week. It's a buildup we've always been doing in recent years towards the World Championships," he explained to Sporza.

Roodhooft acknowledges that Van der Poel can no longer be satiated without the racing thrills. "I feel like he's had enough of training. He's ready to come to Belgium and compete."