Van der Poel feels his body changing after turning 30: "I couldn't handle these workouts at 23"

Mathieu van der Poel won his first race as a thirty-year-old on Saturday at the Maasmechelen World Cup. Last Sunday, he celebrated his birthday. Is it proper for him, as is often said, that he no longer has the same body he had when he was 23? I do notice that I have a bigger engine," said Van der Poel to IDLProCycling.com.

Special birthdays are also celebrated at the Van der Poel home. Van der Poel's 30th birthday was worth celebrating. Did he feel that he turned 30? "I did feel it the day after, but I don't know if that was age-related," he laughed. I did celebrate thoroughly and think it's a special occasion, so I reflect on that."

Without joking, and despite the relatively easy win in the Maasmechelen World Cup, it still seems to affect Van der Poel to see the three in front of his age. "Yes, it does," he says. "After all, I'm suddenly not in my twenties anymore; you suddenly feel older. Hopefully, I'll have a few more good years on the bike."

Read more below the photo.

Van der Poel recently celebrated his 30th birthday

Van der Poel notices natural evolution from road racing

Not that the transition of his body is necessarily a bad thing. For example, we ask him whether he has noticed that he has become less explosive with age but has gained a bigger motor. "Bigger engine, I do notice. If I were training at 23, what I trained this week, I probably wouldn't have been as good on the weekends. Now, I do notice that I can handle that. That's also a natural evolution from racing on the road."

And to think that in Maasmechelen, he was riding with a broken rib. Although it was taped up, his body could handle that, too, and he was a little more careful than usual. "In the end, I did feel it, but it didn't hinder my performance. The main goal was not to crash. That's not the intention anyway, but I maybe did this race a little less furiously than I would normally dare to do. It didn't hinder me very much, but it's slightly different than finishing endurance training on the road."

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