If it is up to Alpecin-Fenix, leader Mathieu van der Poel will be there for the full three weeks in the Tour de France between Copenhagen and Paris. ‘Mathieu will be 27 next summer and then according to the cycling laws it is high time to let him race for three weeks.’
Last year, Alpecin-Fenix flashed like lightning through the Grand Tours. It was a hit (several times) in the Giro, Vuelta and Tour, which means that 2022 will have to be the year of confirmation. Van der Poel is in all likelihood one of the men who will have to do it in the Tour de France, sports director Philip Roodhooft tells. HLN.
‘Without unforeseen circumstances, the goal is indeed to finish’, Roodhooft indicates Van der Poel’s schedule. ‘Mathieu will be 27 next summer and then according to the cycling laws it is high time to let him race for three weeks. That is something to look forward to for us too.’ The trail must VDP are already well situated, with several options in the first two weeks of La Grande Boucle.
Roodhooft: ‘Imagine something in the big round without Mathieu’
Roodhooft speaks of a ‘special 2021’, but the team boss was also pleased with another fact. ‘I have remembered that as a team we can propose something in a Grand Tour without Mathieu.’ Those responsible for this were mainly Jasper Philipsen and Tim Merlier, whose manager does not yet know whether they will both be at the start of the Tour.
‘It’s too early to say. In any case, this year it was the right choice. It may not have been the easiest decision, but it was the right one. The main thing for us is to win another stage and we have three men for that, but of course everyone knows Mathieu’s role’, explains Roodhooft to HLN.
