Will Mathieu van der Poel ride his last race as a cyclo-cross rider on Sunday? The Dutchman thinks about it openly, Niels Albert understands him.
Before his cyclo-cross season, Mathieu van der Poel already suggested that he was thinking about a winter without cross-country skiing. And that thought has not disappeared during the season and his many victories, Van der Poel repeated it in Benidorm.
On Sunday he can become cyclo-cross world champion for the sixth time, again in Tabor. There he became the youngest world champion ever in 2015, and according to Van der Poel it would also be a nice farewell.
Record De Vlaeminck
“Whether he will end it sooner or later is up in the air,” says Niels Albert HLN. “I also understand that he is looking forward to a winter in Spain in which he is left alone, rather than competing in Hamme or Zolder for the umpteenth time.”
According to Albert, there is no doubt that Van der Poel can break De Vlaeminck’s record. The question is more whether Van der Poel really wants to match or break that. “He’s really not concerned with that,” Albert says.
