Van der Poel agrees with father Adrie after "successful day" in the breakaway: "So few stages for classics guys"

Mathieu van der Poel headed to the Tour de France with the ambition to win a stage himself and to contribute to the success of his team Alpecin-Deceuninck. The Dutchman succeeded in that second objective, but winning a stage himself is going to be difficult with the tough third week ahead. Mathieu and father Adrie shed some light on the matter Saturday.

Van der Poel senior himself is attending the Tour de France as a VIP driver for Alpecin-Deceuninck. "Tiring, but in a fun way. We've already won, so the way I see it is this Tour can't go wrong for us," said Adrie, who won't judge his beloved son's overall performance until after the Tour. "I think it will only become clear in the coming week. It was the same last year, when he was really growing. It wasn't an easy Tour, with ever-changing weather. Now we first need to survive the upcoming tough stages," he told Café Koers.

Van der Poel himself remarked that it's hard to force anything in this Tour, which his father agrees with. "What can you do if you are his type of rider in the Tour? Okay, he may still have been useful in the sprint for Jasper (Philipsen, ed.), but a chance of your own becomes minimal if you have a Tour looking like this. You also see that in other riders, who can't do their thing."

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Van der Poel is up there, for lack of better options

Van der Poel won't mind, his father thinks. "I think he has resigned himself to that. He knows what ambitions the team came to the Tour with. The green jersey was then kind of taken away by that disqualification. After that it was a matter of fighting for that stage win. That's not easy either, because there are many guys up there trying to force something while they have no business being there," is his view on the increasingly hectic spurt race.

The protagonist agreed after the fourteenth stage in the Tour, in which Van der Poel decided to join the breakaway during a mountain stage. Why exactly? "I ask myself that sometimes, too," he told the NOS with a laugh. "I'd rather be in the breakaway on a day like that, than in the peloton or the grupetto. It was a successful day, although it was very hard and we didn't have much leeway. They push so hard in the peloton from the beginning that it becomes difficult, even for escapees. Records were broken again on the Tourmalet today, but that also means it's only good to be up there."

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Father Adrie has confidence in Van der Poel for Olympic road race

The gravel stage on day nine is the closest the rainbow jersey came to a win. "Good, but not super," said father Adrie. "He had put in a lot of energy to be in the breakaway and that didn't work out in the end. Then he got caught between the group in front and the classification riders. But there was also a lot of quality at the front, which doesn't make it any easier."

The big goal, of course, has yet to follow, with the road racing Olympics. "I have confidence in that. If he sets himself certain goals, he often comes close. And if there's one time he does not, we accept that too. What he did this spring, they won't take that away. We expect that kind of riders to be there every time, but we have learned from the past few years that he often succeeds."

In any case, according to Van der Poel himself, the form is growing, his team Alpecin-Deceuninck also indicated. "I actually felt very good, also uphill. I'm satisfied with that feeling. It was a lot better on Friday and today, so I'm happy with that. The intention is to go to Nice and I know for myself what I have to do to come out of a Tour like this well. With common sense, but that's not so difficult, with so few stages for classics guys."