Van der Poel reveals calendar and makes his intentions clear: he is going for the 5 Monuments

Alpecin-Deceuninck has confirmed on their social media the calendar of their main cyclists, including Mathieu van der Poel who will start his road season, after a well-deserved break following his dominance in cyclocross, as planned, by defending his victory from last year in the Milan-San Remo.

Mathieu van der Poel's monumental season begins

As rumored a few weeks ago, Alpecin-Deceuninck confirms that Mathieu van der Poel will kick off his 2024 road season by competing in none other than the Milan-San Remo, without holding back. A race in which he gave us a powerful victory last year and where he will try to repeat his success.

The calendar unveiled by Alpecin-Deceuninck only reveals Mathieu van der Poel's path during the spring. A calendar in which his presence at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege stands out, one of the two monuments still missing from his achievements and in which he had only competed once, in 2020, achieving a commendable 6th position in a race that suits him much less than the cobbled Flemish classics.

A clear message of an intention that he had already hinted at on several occasions, that of winning the 5 Monuments, one of the great feats of cycling that only Rik van Looy, Roger de Vlaeminck, and, of course, the incomparable Eddy Merckx have achieved.

Although the rest of his calendar has not been revealed yet, Van der Poel has already hinted that the Paris Olympic Games will be another of his priorities, although it is still to be decided whether he will only participate in the road race or will also seek to double up with the XCO race, which could affect his participation in the Tour de France. If he does participate, it will be with the same mentality of training and helping the team as he did in 2023, which helped him arrive in optimal form at the Glasgow World Championships that he brilliantly won a few weeks later.

Although Mathieu van der Poel has not commented on the final part of the season, it is not too imaginative to assume that if he were to win Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he would likely prepare thoroughly, even ahead of the 2024 Zurich World Championships, whose course seems too demanding for his characteristics, for his participation in Il Lombardia where he could complete the Monument grand slam.

Returning to Mathieu van der Poel's spring calendar, it follows the same strategy as the recent cyclocross campaign, with fewer races but select ones. Of course, it includes the two cobbled monuments: Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and is complemented by the most relevant races of the Flemish spring: E3 Saxo Classic and Gent-Wevelgem, in addition to, within the Ardennes week, the Amstel Gold Race, a race he conquered in his first participation in 2019, which was his grand entrance into road cycling.