Why Alpecin-Deceuninck and Van der Poel are a perfect match: "A team without Mathieu? That would be tough!"

If Mathieu van der Poel wins Paris-Roubaix for the third time in a row on Sunday, he’ll have racked up eight Monument victories, and he’s only 30 years old. The Dutch star is cherished at Alpecin-Deceuninck, where Philip and Christoph Roodhooft have supported him throughout his entire career, making sure he lacks nothing. It’s no surprise, then, that Van der Poel is staying right where he is.

The Dutch cycling sensation is under contract until the end of 2028, and it’s a safe bet he’ll remain with the Roodhooft brothers even beyond that. Van der Poel is a perfect fit at Alpecin-Deceuninck, a team that has stood by him in both good times and bad. “These days, people often turn it into a fairy tale, as if everything has always gone smoothly and easily. But that’s just not true,” said Philip Roodhooft in Het Nieuwsblad.

Post-COVID, in 2020, Van der Poel wasn’t in form, as seen in his results at Strade Bianche and Milan–San Remo. “He came out of the pandemic overtrained and started the season that way,” Christoph recalled. “But then in October, he won the Tour of Flanders. That’s Mathieu too. But as a team, you have to remain calm in those moments. That’s what I mean: winning might seem obvious with him, but the path to get there is often anything but obvious.”

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Van der Poel showed character after difficult moments

The Roodhooft brothers also point to several tough moments in Mathieu van der Poel’s career: the crash at the 2021 Olympic mountain bike race, his back problems, the 2022 Tour de France, and his run-in with the Australian police during the World Championships that same year. “It was a brutal period. In that Tour, his longtime rival (Wout van Aert, ed.) was flying day after day, while Mathieu could barely move forward. Disillusioned, like a broken man, he pulled out of the Tour,” said Christoph.

According to Christoph, the pressure was taken off after that, and the team offered Van der Poel their full support. Philip added: “We literally told him: just leave it. Take your time, and we’ll see when you’re ready again. Will that be in three months? Six months? It doesn’t matter.” The Belgian doesn’t know for sure whether that period is the reason Van der Poel is still with Alpecin-Deceuninck, “but I’m certain he hasn’t forgotten those tough times,” he concluded.

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Van der Poel won this year's E3 Saxo Classic

Alpecin-Deceuninck not worried Van der Poel will leave

Alpecin-Deceuninck has built a protective wall around Mathieu van der Poel, always shielding him from criticism and now they’re reaping the rewards of that partnership. There’s even a bit of a revenge factor in it, after years of being a smaller team fighting against the giants of the sport. “Mathieu understands very well how the world works. If he could choose purely based on feeling, maybe he wouldn’t even ride the Tour de France. But we don’t have to convince him, fun or not, he knows in the end he’ll go,” said the team.

They’re also not afraid that Van der Poel might leave someday. Teams like Team Sky and Lidl-Trek have come knocking before. “We had adult conversations with Mathieu about that. Did he want to leave? When we sensed that wasn’t really the case, we came up with something ourselves. Something that works for everyone, I think, including the sport. Because the more top riders are spread across different teams, the more exciting the racing is, and the better it is for everyone,” said Philip. “A team without him, with Mathieu riding for another squad and us having to race against him, that would be tough for me.”

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