Mathieu van der Poel's return date to cyclocross now unknown after crash: "He is simply suffering too much from it"

Alpecin-Deceuninck are lining up with several big riders today at the major cross race in Koksijde but without Mathieu van der Poel on the startline as planned. The team will still aim for victories and team manager Christoph Roodhoft is present to provide an update on the World Champion's condition.

“He is still suffering a lot from that fall. Is it worse than he thought? He is simply suffering too much from it," Roodhoft said in words to Wielerflits. "After the cross in Loenhout it was a simple fall, but later it turned out to be more serious. He was in pain. We had hoped that he would be able to start here, but that didn't work out."

A difficult situation, as the fall that initially didn't feel serious for the Dutchman then developed into a lot of rib pain that is already taking him out of his second scheduled cyclocross race. The Dendermonde World Cup on Sunday, where he would potentially race against Wout van Aert again, is starting to seem like an unlikely return date - after which he would only race again now in the space of three weeks.

Roodhoft has continued his explanation of van der Poel's current status: "He went for a ride in the woods with the bike. That's a good way to test whether you could do cross. But that test wasn't good, it was still too difficult for him. That's why we decided that Koksijde is still too early. Whether Dendermonde will work out, I can't say at the moment. We'll have to wait and see."

However, this shouldn't affect his goal of racing the World Championships, or delay his preparation towards the road season. "He can still ride on the road. He hardly has any trouble with it on the road bike. That's good of course. His rib pain therefore has no impact on the road season. Everyone gets sick sometimes or has something for the winter. “So this is not a major disaster,” he concluded.