Home > News

Why would any ‘fan’ do this to Mathieu van der Poel?

French authorities are on the lookout for a spectator after some disturbing behaviour

Paris-Roubaix spectator who threw cap at Mathieu van der Poel says she's a 'fan'
April 8, 2024
Share on SMS

With 42 km remaining of Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix, someone on the side of the road threw a cap toward the wheels of eventual winner Mathieu van der Poel. And they may end up being in big trouble for such an irresponsible move.

The UNCP (Union Nationale des Cyclistes Professionnels) is preparing to submit a report to the French authorities. As seen during the race, footage showed a spectator on the left side of the Dutch cyclist who seemed to hurl a cycling cap towards the rider’s wheels. Fortunately, Van der Poel escaped unscathed from the incident, but such reckless behavior could have resulted in a potential crash or, at the very least, slowed him down had the cap become entangled in his wheels.

Fan to be taken to court

“We use the national federations to take them to court,” CPA president Adam Hansen told GCN. Since the French members of the CPA (Cyclistes Professionnels Associés). The UNCP is tasked with notifying local authorities about the incident since the race occurred in France, the Australian said.

“So the CPA can’t do it because we’re a Swiss organization. So in this case the French association, the UNCP, can take the individual to court,” the former pro said.”They’ll file their report to the local authorities.  And they’ll do a full investigation. We’ll find that person, that’s for sure.”

At the Tour of Flanders, a spectator on the roadside threw beer at the Dutch rider.

The spitting incident

In December, at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Hulst, people were throwing beer (or something worse) at the world champion as well. Ultimately MvdP would spit at them, fed up with the constant harassment.


“What happened? Nothing. Just a bunch of booers. It was the whole race. It already started during the warm-up. I’m done with it. If you do, you better stay home. I’m done with all the booing,” he explained.

Mathieu van Dribble? World champ spits at booing fans

“What did they shout? You better ask them yourself. I’m not going to repeat that here. These are certainly not things that belong in sports. There shouldn’t be any boos for anyone. After a while, it’s enough, even for me,” he added.

Opi/Omi

Turns out, the CPA and UNCP have a history of locating spectators responsible for incidents and taking them to civil courts. Take the case of the “Opi/Omi” spectator who caused a major crash during the 2021 Tour de France and was ultimately fined 1,200 euro.

“We’ve got good experiences from this in the past, if you look back to what happened at the Tour de France when Tony Martin was taken down by a spectator.  And the UNCP took that person to court and that case was won. So we do file actions and that person was fined,” Hansen added. “It looked like a hat. It was on the side of the rotor and with disc brakes, if that had got caught and pulled into the disc brake it could have locked his front wheel up. It could have been pretty bad.”