The sports director of Alpecin-Deceuninck, Christoph Roodhooft, told the secrets of the preseason of the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, which, for the moment, represents full of victories, all of them overwhelming, in the cyclocross races that he has held and that aim to a memorable mud campaign.
The lack of pressure and the last few months facing his preseason on the roads of Alicante have meant that Mathieu van der Poel is in the “best shape he has ever been in,” according to what the sports director confessed to the Belgian newspaper Het-Niewsblad.
And, beyond the typical winter concentrations that the teams usually carry out, Mathieu has directly purchased a house in the Marina Alta of Alicante, a place where he does nothing but train and rest, with nothing to distract him, contrary to what happens when you are in Belgium where there are always things to do.
Furthermore, the advantage of Alicante is the good weather compared to that of Belgium during these dates, which allows you to complete all planned training without incident, eliminating the possibility of suffering incidents. “The last 14 months have gone by without a hitch. “Everything went as planned, without illnesses or accidents of any kind,” commented the Alpecin-Deceuninck technician.
In fact, in recent days he has been seen sharing training on the roads of Alicante with another who has been residing in the area for long periods of time, such as Remco Evenepoel.
Furthermore, as Christoph Roodhooft confessed, Van der Poel, at 28 years old, “is reaching an age where everything is falling into place, he feels good, technically impeccable, his engine works optimally, he has the ideal position on the bike …”
Proof of this is the overwhelming dominance that he has shown in the cyclocross races held in recent weeks and that, especially after the last World Cup race in Gavere, his fourth consecutive victory, has left his rivals with a feeling of total frustration as is the case of his archrival Wout van Aert who after the Gavere test declared “the kicking areas of the circuit suited me well so I tried to make it as hard as possible for Mathieu at the start. But on the second lap I was already over my limit. Mathieu just destroyed the race, he is on another level.”
Another aspect that has influenced Mathieu van der Poel’s spectacular performance in this shortened cyclocross campaign is that he faces it without any type of pressure, just for fun. Something that he enjoys again after forgetting the back pain that had been torturing him in recent winters. On his mind now is only the challenge of achieving his sixth rainbow jersey in the modality and getting closer to the record of seven windings held by Erid de Vlaeminck.
Source: www.brujulabike.com