Van der Poel not yet at his best after illness, but team feels free heading into Roubaix: "How many monuments have they won?"

Mathieu van der Poel has not fully recovered from the physical issues he faced before and during the Tour of Flanders, according to his team manager Christoph Roodhooft in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. Van der Poel was ill leading up to Flanders Finest and crashed on his shoulder during the race.

“But anyway: Roubaix on Sunday. A new opportunity,” says Roodhooft, preferring to look ahead. Because according to the Belgian, Van der Poel is perfectly fine with not winning sometimes. “If someone is better, Mathieu never has much of a problem with not winning. And let’s call a spade a spade—on Sunday, someone was better.” Moreover, Alpecin-Deceuninck already has a Monument win this year, with Milan-San Remo. “‘Relief’ is definitely the right word. Because it makes the spring season so much more pleasant. You’ve already won something big.”

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Van der Poel won Milan-Sanremo

Alpecin-Deceuninck and Van der Poel feel the pressure, especially heading into Paris-Roubaix

Van der Poel has to win, every single year. This season, he’s already done so at Le Samyn, Milan-San Remo, and the E3 Saxo Classic. Philip Roodhooft, understands that the outside world expects those victories. “That’s the downside of what we’ve built over the past few years: the pressure. Every year, you have to prove yourself again. It’s not easy. We’d be very arrogant if we started the season thinking, ‘We’ll just do it again.’” And so, Christoph admits: “I’ll be honest, a weight lifted off my shoulders after San Remo. I sometimes fear the year when it won’t work out.”

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Van der Poel finished third in Flanders

And then Van der Poel only started riding monuments at the age of 25....

The strange thing about the seven Monuments Van der Poel has already won? He might have had many more by now. The Dutchman only started racing the big one-day classics at the age of 25. According to Philip Roodhooft, that was a deliberate and logical choice. “It would be an exaggeration to say we had to force him into those big races, but he did start his road career with some healthy reluctance. He was perfectly fine with how things were: he had his cyclocross races, and he was winning smaller road events easily. That gradual transition is actually one of the things we handled really well.”

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