Mathieu van der Poel thinks Froome should be suspended

At 22-years-old, Mathieu van der Poel is experienced beyond his years dominating cyclocross to the tune of 21 victories this season alone. Chris Froome was equally dominant in grand tours in 2017 winning his fourth Tour de France title and Vuelta a España. The second of which however is in jeopardy after an adverse analytical drug test revealed twice the allowable limit of Salbutamol in Froome’s system. If van der Poel had a say, Froome would be suspended.

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“For me, that’s just a positive test: if you have 2,000 nanograms of salbutamol per milliliter of urine instead of the permissible 1,000 nanograms, I do not think there’s anything to talk about,” the European champion and cyclocross World Cup leader said to Dutch program EenVandaag.

Froome will however have a chance to defend himself before a ruling is passed down. Team Sky and Froome have hired a team of lawyers to lead his defense and avoid a suspension similar to the ones handed down to Diego Ulissi and Alessandro Petacchi after returning similar levels of the restricted asthma medication.

“I may be very blunt and maybe asthma patients will believe Froome, but this is just stupid, and cycling is a sport for healthy people,” van der Poel said plainly.

The Dutchman who has committed to the next two season to building towards the mountain bike events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics also directed criticism at the UCI for it’s badly defined rules.

“The UCI allows abuse of certain products,” van der Poel saidd. “If you say a product is forbidden, you can not use it, but if you say you can use a product up to a certain amount, then you know that there are people who go over that amount. And that’s the fault of the UCI. “