Mathieu van der Poel to make Tour of Flanders debut in 2019
Dutchman national champion in cyclocross, MTB and road will make his long awaited debut in the Spring Classics in 2019
If you have been eagerly anticipating cyclocross star Mathieu van der Poel making his debut at the spring classics, the wait is over. In 2019, the 23-year-old Dutchman national road, mountain bike and cyclocross champion will race a select group of spring classics that includes Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Ronde van Vlaanderen and De Branbantse Pijl. Van der Poel’s Corendon–Circus team moved up to the UCI Pro Continental ranks to make it possible for the team to get invites to the Flanders Classics.
2019 will be the first time cycling fans will get to see van der Poel race against WorldTour riders in big spring classics. Last year, Wout van Aert stunned the cycling world with his amazing spring which included third at Strade Bianche and top-10’s at the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem. Van der Poel was junior world road champion in 2013 and expectations will be high in the four classics he is scheduled to ride. While he will sit out Paris-Roubaix, the helligen and cobbled climbs of Belgium should suit van der Poel’s skillset very well.
Van der Poel has been reluctant to commit to just one discipline at cycling and it’s hard to argue with his approach. In 2018, van der Poel added to his palmares with results across disciplines that just shows how talented he is. After a dominant cyclocross season where the only thing he didn’t win was the world championship title, van der Poel transitioned to XC mountain biking where he placed third in three rounds of the UCI World Cup and won a bronze medal at the world championships.
He had time to also race part of a road calendar winning the Boucles de la Mayenne, Ronde van Limburg, the Dutch road race championships and two stages of the Arctic Race of Norway. In the autumn he resumed racing cross and has won nearly every race he’s entered since. Remarkable barely sums up the list of results.
Van der Poel has plans to continue racing a multi-disciplinary program until 202o when he intends to represent the Netherlands at the Tokyo Olympics in XC mountain biking. After that, his future is uncertain but regardless of where he chooses to race cycling fans will surely be watching closely to find out.
