Van der Poel sets his sights on the Tour: "We're seeing watts we've never seen before"

With his victory in the Baloise Belgium Tour, a one-week tour that ended yesterday, Mathieu van der Poel makes it clear that his preparation for the imminent start of the Tour de France is going according to plan. A road that in any case is not his main priority as the Dutchman's sights are fixed on the World Championships in Glasgow.

Van der Poel ready to put on a show at Tour de France

Mathieu van der Poel's return to competition could not have been more fruitful. A week in which he has chained the classic Dwars door het Hagelland with the Baloise Belgium Tour in which he left us one of his masterpieces in the 4th stage where he attacked with more than 30 kilometers to go solo.

Even before that, he had already surprised the previous day with a 4th place in the time trial, finishing 15 seconds behind the winner, which helped him to take the lead of the race, which he would not lose for the rest of the race.

Asked if he will be looking to assault the yellow jersey of the Tour during the first stages, Mahieu van der Poel is sincere and affirms that they are very hard stages on the Basque roads and that it will be very complicated, being his goal for this French round to try to win a stage, something that we do not doubt that he will do, with a few days that can adapt perfectly to his profile of classics rider.

In any case, we must not forget that the Tour de France is not a priority race for the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider, but part of his preparation for the Glasgow World Championships, which will take place a couple of weeks after the end of the French race and where he will try to get rid of the thorn of not being able to compete in last year's race after the incident he suffered in the hotel.

According to director Christoph Roodhooft, Mathieu arrives at this stage of the season in top form after some very good training rides, such as the one in La Plagne a couple of weeks ago. Roodhooft points out that it has been important to limit his participation in races this season in order to have a fresher Van der Poel, a new approach that was already hinted at by the rider himself before the start of the season. Before the Tour next Sunday, a final test, at the Dutch Championships, will serve as a measure of Mathieu's true form ahead of the Tour.