Mathieu van der Poel‘s lackluster performance at Strade Bianche may have raised eyebrows among some, however, the Alpecin-Deceunick star came away from his first road race of the 2023 season seemingly coolheaded after finishing an uncharacteristic 15th place in Siena.
The 28-year-old wrapped up a long cyclocross campaign at the world championships in early February, which he won ahead of Wout van Aert, but since claiming the rainbow bands, the 2021 winner of Strade Bianche has had just a month to rediscover his road legs. According to van der Poel, it isn’t enough time to get back to his typical level of ability.
“The feeling was not too bad after all,” van der Poel said. “Personally, I did not expect the best version of myself yet. I was good enough to race, but not to win such a tough race as my first competition. I need some course toughness, and that’s normal.”
Van der Poel said because of the toughness of the Strade Bianche, he didn’t enter the Tuscan race with any expectations of a top performance.
“I survived the most difficult gravel section pretty well, but the legs were just not good enough to answer the decisive attack,” he said at the finish.
Van der Poel remains confident that his form will return in the coming weeks. When asked if he was at all worried about his relatively slow return to form, he said, in his opinion, his performance at Strade Bianche wasn’t disappointing.
“Next week, I will continue to build up my shape in Tirreno Adriatico. And that is exactly what we had in mind when we planned my race calendar,” he said. “We knew before that the period between the Cyclocross World Championships and Strade Bianche was pretty short. I tried to be good here, but as I said, the best version of myself is yet to come.”
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…