Mathieu van der Poel has confirmed his participation in the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships, which take place in the Veneto next weekend. The Dutchman will join riders including Peter Sagan, Nicolas Roche and Alex Howes in the field of the elite men’s race on October 9.
Van der Poel will also ride next week's Serenissima Gravel race in Italy, along with Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Gianni Vermeersch. Both will end their 2022 season in Italy and then take a break before a possible cyclocross campaign during the winter.
"We are writing a bit of history on Sunday”, Van der Poel said.
"For me my very first gravel race in my career. Although it is not completely new. I trained on the gravel bike for the first time today and it feels like something between road racing and cyclo-cross. The adaptation on the bike wasn't too bad."
The 27-year-old has won the cyclo-cross world title on four occasions, and he was European Cross-country Mountain Bike champion in 2019. He was also junior road world champion in Florence in 2013.
Van der Poel played down any ambitions for the Gravel world title but is likely to compete against the best Gravel racers in the sport.
"It's mainly fun to be there. And if the feeling is okay on Sunday, we will obviously do our best to get the best possible result," he said.
The Gravel Worlds will be Van der Poel’s competitive outing since his ill-fated expedition to the road Worlds in Wollongong, where he was arrested following an altercation with two teenage girls who were knocking on his hotel room door on the eve of the race.
Van der Poel later pleaded guilty to two charges of common assault, and he was fined $1500 before leaving Australia. Despite his arrest, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider started the road race, but he abandoned inside the opening 40km.
“I should have informed someone, the front desk or something, anyway. It was just getting late and I wanted to sleep,” Van der Poel told reporters on his return to Europe last week. “I thought I'd fix it myself, which ended up being completely wrong. Unfortunately, I can't change it anymore."
At that point, Van der Poel was non-committal about his plans for the remainder of the road season. “I hope to do something, but it depends on how I recover in the coming days,” he said.
