Dutch van der Poel’s injuries do not allow him to defend the title he has held since 2019; van Aert will not be about to prepare the spring classics en route
The dutch Mathieu van der Poel, injured in the back, ended his cyclocross season and will not defend his world champion title at the end of the month in Fayetteville (United States), where Nor will his great Belgian rival Wout van Aert be there.
“Due to this back problem, I did not reach the desired level since the Tour and I just want to get over it ”, declared van der Poel, quoted in a statement from his team, the Alpecin-Fenix.
“The only remedy is a longer rest time and it would be foolish to interrupt this period again and still try to reach the World Championship, ”he added.
Van der Poel emphasized that it is “A big disappointment” not being able to defend in the United States the triple title added since the 2019 season.
“I am not worried about the future of my careerBut of course it frustrates me now that I don’t know how long this rest period will last, ”said the Dutchman.
The Alpecin-Fenix team indicated that van der Poel will start his road cycling season when he has completely overcome his physical problem and can prepare properly.
For its part, from Aert announced on the Twitter account of his Jumbo-Visma team that will not go to the World Cup.
“It’s a shame but it is an unavoidable decision considering my spring program (boreal) ”, estimated the Olympic road cycling runner-up in Tokyo 2020.
The Belgian cyclist, world champion of cyclo-cross in 2016, 2017 and 2018, winner this Wednesday in his hometown of the Herentals Trophy, he planned to announce his decision next Sunday at the Belgian Championship, but finally decided to advance the news after scoring the eighth victory of the season over nine races of cyclo-cross disputed.
The absence of van der Poel and van Aert supposes for the Cyclocross World Cup to have a new monarch since 2014 when the czech was crowned Zdeněk Štybar, the last rider to win the rainbow jersey in the modality, before the dominance marked by the Dutch and the Belgian. (D)
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