Van der Poel to Ride the Tour de France 2024
Mathieu van der Poel is to ride the Tour de France 2024, and intends to stay to the end.
His Alpecin Deceuninck team has announced that their Dutch star will not leave the Tour early, and will therefore not participate in the Olympic mountain bike event. He will, though, ride the road race at the Olympics in Paris, on 3rd August 2024.
Van der Poel is the current road World Champion, so he will sport the rainbow bands at the Tour de France.
‘With Paris 2024, putting together the summer program was a difficult puzzle for our world champion Mathieu van der Poel. After careful consideration, the decision has been made. No mountain biking, but full focus on the combination Tour de France – Olympic road race’.
statement by alpecin deceuninck
Mathieu van der Poel said:
‘This is the most logical choice to be able to prepare for my goals without time pressure. The combination with MTB was too difficult. But who knows, maybe in LA ‘28 I can focus on mountain biking.
My ambition for the Tour de France? I hope like last year to assist teammate Jasper Philipsen in his hunt for stage wins and a possible green jersey. And the goal is to also win a stage myself this year’.
mathieu van der poel
As the statement makes clear, Alpecin Deceuninck will also be taking Jasper Philipsen to the Tour de France.
Philipsen was the best sprinter at the 2023 Tour, and will be hoping for several stage wins in 2024. Among his opponents will be Mark Cavendish.
Van der Poel is likely to target hilly stages, and try to win solo or in sprints from a reduced bunch. Stage 1 provides the first opportunity.
He has already raced cyclo-cross and the Spring Classics this year. He is not planning on doing any more races between now and the Tour, but is confident that he will be in good shape in France.
Jasper Philipsen’s Race Programme
Philipsen is to race the Baloise Belgium Tour in June, and the Belgian National Championships on 23rd June 2024.
Jonas Vingegaard Update
Meanwhile, Cycling Weekly has an optimistic update on the condition of Jonas Vingegaard.
Vingegaard’s coach Tim Heemskerk says the Dane is making rapid progress in his return to fitness, and could join his Visma Lease-a-Bike team at an altitude camp in Tignes.
‘Every time the messages we’ve got are that he’s improving so fast. Every day we’ve been keeping in touch with each other and every day it’s going in the direction of maybe doing some normal training again in just a matter of time.
I’m positive at the moment seeing that every day we can add a little bit to his riding and every day, we get the feedback that this is going in the right direction from the physio working with him in Denmark.
When we really look at how much time we have till the start of the Tour, let’s say it’s eight weeks, then we know that Jonas is at the best place at the moment to build base levels, to increase training volume, to maybe start doing some intervals soon and to continue working with the physio in Denmark.
But then at one point, you know that like every year, Denmark is not the place to prepare for the Tour. So you have to go in the future, when things are going in the right direction, you have to go ride long climbs.
I really hope we will improve every day so that he’s able to join the team in Tignes and be part of a group.
We’ll continue monitoring every day, I think that’s the most important thing now and I know it will be really important in the next two, three weeks. I’m positive about these things.’
tim heemskerk
Heemskerk added that Vingegaard may only do training before the Tour de France, but he did not exclude the possibility of the current Tour de France champion entering a race.