Adrie about Mathieu: ‘Sometimes you can get gray hairs from him’
In conversation with Sporza, Adrie talks about the successes of his son, who was crowned cyclo-cross world champion for the eighth time last weekend. “When he was four or five, I could already see that he had something special. He was always busy and always driven.”
Where he was seen as a game bird at the beginning of his career, he is now a machine that delivers to the assembly line. His trainer Tom Verhaegen is important in this regard. “There is a click. Sometimes Tom Matje has to make adjustments and sometimes it is the other way around. You have to make concessions through two customers to achieve something great.”
Who should certainly not be forgotten in Van der Poel’s success is his girlfriend Roxanne. Adrie about this: “I think Roxane accepts Matje as he is, because sometimes you can get gray hairs from him. He lives in Spain for a large part of the year and she relieves him of a lot of things there.”
Work even harder to follow Pogacar
It ensures that he is better balanced than ever, as Christoph Roodhooft also told Wieler Revue last weekend. This also makes him more professional than ever. Adrie: “I can still see Mathieu walking past the buffet in front of the Amstel that he won. He stuffed himself with bacon and eggs. Eight hours later he wins. But he knows himself, because he also said: ‘I have to work even harder to follow Tadej on some climbs.'”
It is sometimes said that Van der Poel does not race much. That is partly correct, says Adrie. “He spends around sixty racing days, including cross-country. That may date back to the junior days, because I said then that we will never do more than sixty racing days per year. He also says that he suffers more in training than in racing. Those training sessions require a lot. They are so prepared for the first competitions. Training in racing almost no longer exists.”
Related reading
