Van der Poel takes long and windy road home after Koksijde cancellation
Mathieu van der Poel missed out on the chance to make up ground in the Cyclo-cross World Cup standings due to the cancellation of Sunday’s race in Koksijde but he salvaged a day’s training by defying an extreme weather warning to ride the 208 kilometres back to his home in Kapellen on the Belgian-Dutch border.
With the North Sea coast battered by storms and high winds, the organisers in Koksijde took the wise decision to cancel all racing on Sunday out of concern for the safety of the riders and spectators. Indeed, there was a general weather warning in place across the country. However Van der Poel was undeterred and rode home in the company of his brother and Beobank-Corendon teammate David.
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“It was actually my brother David’s idea. Neither of us wanted to return home by car so we decided to cycle. It was just the two of us, there was no one else,” Van der Poel told Sporza. “We had the wind at our backs. In the beginning, there was still a lot of wind, which was very nice, although there were some parts where we had headwind.
"We left Koksijde at around 11:30, when it was still bright. By the time we got to Antwerp, it was getting dark. From Antwerp, we rode to Kapellen along bike paths."
Van der Poel spent most of last week training in Spain, and after Sunday’s unexpected block of work on the long road home, he envisaged a more relaxed build-up to next weekend’s World Cup race in Zeven.
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) November 20, 2016
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