Despite his triumph, Mathieu Van der Poel’s Tour of Flanders is not quite over yet. Following the race, the Flemish Ardennes police opened an investigation into “assault and battery” in order to identify the spectators who sprayed beer and insulted the Alpecin-Deceuninck runner this Sunday, during the race. ascension of Old Kwaremont.
Without being very violent, the images seen both during the race and on social networks are quite crazy: we see Van der Poel cutting through a hostile crowd, who insult him copiously, give him the middle finger and down his pint of beer on it. A habit in Belgium for the Dutchman, great rival of the local of the stage Wout van Aert.
The police have announced, reports the Belgian press, that they will use all the images from the cameras at their disposal to identify the culprits, whether they are official videos or shared on social networks. “If the beer throwers are identified, we will initiate civil proceedings,” responded the organizing company of the Tour of Flanders, Flanders Classics, via its CEO Tomas van den Spiegel. We also did this on the Omloop. Beer was thrown at Marianne Vos on the Muur van Geraardsbergen. The beer throwers were identified and we became a civil party. »
