Van der Poel could start defending his victory in the Milan-San Remo

After successfully ending his cyclocross minicampaign, in which he only failed to win one of the races, the one in Benidorm, and with a new rainbow jersey in his record, it's time for Mathieu van der Poel to outline his road calendar. Everything suggests that he will extend these small vacations as much as possible, so he might not reappear until the Milan-San Remo.

When will Van der Poel return? Speculations begin about the Dutchman's calendar

The cyclocross campaign has just ended and conjectures are already being made about what Mathieu van der Poel's road bike calendar will be, something that there is probably a sketch of but most likely not 100% defined as it will depend on how the recovery and training of the cyclist evolves.

In any case, putting pieces together based on statements, intentions and others, everything points to we will not see Mathieu van der Poel reappear until the Milan-San Remo, a race in which, surely, he will try to repeat the spectacular victory he gave us last year. A race that takes place in the final stretch of March and would give Mathieu almost two months between recovery and tuning.

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Other sources suggest, however, that he would return for the Strade Bianche, practically at the beginning of the classics campaign, only ignoring the Belgian Opening Weekend. An option that seems quite unlikely since, with this race taking place on March 2, it would leave only one month between recovery and training. Surely, too rushed even though Mathieu van der Poel's cyclocross season has been almost a military walk.

The third option seems much more logical and, being the midpoint, it is probably the correct one. It says that we would see Mathieu van der Poel debut in the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race which, traditionally, has been on the agenda of those who were going to compete in the Milan-San Remo with aspirations since, debuting directly in the Classic without race rhythm seems too risky, even for Van der Poel.

More strange seem other predictions of the Belgian press such as those that point out that Mathieu would stretch his classics season to compete in the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, echoing statements of the cyclist at the beginning of the year pointing out this possibility. A race in which Mathieu van der Poel has only participated in 2020, finishing sixth and which, on the other hand, could be part of a plan to conquer the 5 monuments. Precisely La Doyenne is together with Il Lombardia one of the two that are missing in his record and, also, the two most difficult to win for a cyclist of his characteristics.

What is certain is that, apart from the classics season, the second main objective of Mathieu van der Poel will be the Paris Olympics, although here the doubt is whether he will repeat last year's approach in which he used the Tour de France as preparation. This time, both tests are much closer in time and there will only be eight days between the end of the Tour de France and the Olympic road test.

Another option that Van der Poel himself raised was not to go to the Tour de France and try to make the feat of doubling Olympic participation in mountain biking and road, an option that seems complicated since it would force the Alpecin-Deceuninck cyclist to compete something on the fat wheels in order to have the necessary looseness and the competition rhythm that this discipline requires.

That is the range of options that opens up before Mathieu van der Poel, now it only remains for him to sit down with his coach and the directors of Alpecin-Deceuninck to see what is most convenient for him considering training, convenience at the image level for the team and possibilities of getting the maximum sports return. A meeting that, on the other hand, should not be delayed more than a couple of weeks due to the need to start preparing for the classics no later.