Mathieu van der Poel once sat in the car for an hour with a broken collarbone, while his dad continued his CX training
World champion gave candid interview about 2023, his relationship with Tadej Pogačar…and his new mullet
Mathieu van der Poel is a very, very tough bike racer. He can endure pain like any top pro–even if that means crashing hard in the final kilometres of the road worlds and remounting and riding to the win. When he was a kid, there was a time when he had to grin and bear it when he injured himself whene he was training with his father, also a top cyclocross star, Adri van der Poel.
“I once broke my collarbone when I was sixteen during cyclocross training in Huijbergen, The Netherlands. I broke my collarbone there and my dad put me in the car. And he’s just continued his training,” the current CX and road world champion said on the “Live Slow Ride Fast” podcast with Laurens ten Dam and Stefan Bolt. “From the car I always saw them passing by in the woods. And I always honked my horn when they passed by. An hour later the training was over and I was still sitting there with my broken collarbone.”
MvdP had a terrific 2023, with lots of big wins–including the road worlds. Looking ahead to 2024, he said he was very satisfied with this season, and he’s not sure what more he can do to be better.
“2023 was better than expected. What else could I improve on? In climbing perhaps, but that’s not necessary for me at the moment because I’m targeting the races that suit me best right now. And I’d rather do that 100 per cent. than try to lose a kilo here and there to climb a little better.“
Mathieu van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel went for a bonkers hilly training ride
In terms of his power output, MvdP said he was definitely stronger in 2023 than the year before.
“Yes, the tests were pretty good. There were personal bests in terms of power, yes. I’ve always felt that I can do a lot more in racing than in training,” he shared. That’s a good thing. I rode almost all my records in the race and also in the last hour of the race. That’s probably my strength.”
That being said, he still believes the best rider in the world is a certain Slovenian.
“For me, that’s Tadej Pogačar. It’s hard to compare, but if you look at what he’s doing everywhere, Tadej is the best rider for me. What Jonas Vingegaard is doing is also phenomenal, but I don’t see him winning the Tour of Flanders right away.”
Pogačar and van der Poel are also pretty friendly with each other. They text each other regularly, and it’s usually not about bikes. “The last thing he sent was, ‘What the fuck did you do with your hair?” (The Dutchman recently got a mullet.)
