Van der Poel continues to not recover and will not be at the Dendermonde World Cup

His team had planned to wait until Saturday to decide if the World Champion would participate in Dendermonde, but Van der Poel made it clear a few hours earlier. He prefers to wait and will also not be at the World Cup on Sunday.

Mathieu van der Poel is also forced to give up Dendermonde

Remember that Van der Poel has now given up 4 races from his planned schedule for this cyclocross season. All due to a blow he suffered in Loenhout that has left him with strong pain in the rib area.

This injury does not prevent him from continuing to train, but he has tried to ride fast on hard terrain and the pain remains very intense. So now he will take a few days to do the first concentration of the year with the road team in Spain and hopes to resume his cyclocross schedule on January 25th.

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This is how the team has communicated it:

Initially, Mathieu van der Poel had planned to make a decision before Saturday, but the call came earlier than expected: the World Champion has announced his withdrawal from the CX World Cup round in Dendermonde.

«It doesn't make sense to wait any longer», explained Van der Poel. «Today I did another test and it is clear that Dendermonde is coming too soon. On the hardest off-road terrains, I still feel too much pain in the rib. I have no choice but to continue being patient».

As planned, Mathieu will head to a training camp in Spain after Dendermonde. At the end of this month, he will compete in the Maasmechelen and Hoogerheide World Cup events, before attempting to win his seventh world title in Liévin in early February. For now, the rest of his cyclocross program has not been affected.