When you’re chasing a third successive Paris-Roubaix title, have won all the spring Classics – cobbled, Ardennes and Italian – except two (Gent-Wevelgem, 2nd - 2024; and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 3rd - 2024), and have already settled the everlasting debate of who’s better between yourself and your great rival – six Monuments to one; nine world titles to three – what else is there really left to win? You’ve worn the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, secured GOAT status in one discipline (cyclo-cross) by ruthlessly and relentlessly laying waste to your opponents for the past decade, and latterly ruled a new discipline (gravel) because you own the patent to all bikes – past, present and future – and no one else is allowed to share equal pleasure, how on earth can you improve your palmarès?
Mathieu van der Poel has an answer, because he always does. “In the end, you will always have gaps that you would like to fill,” he says, six weeks into his 2025 season which already includes eight wins out of eight races. That hole, that blemish on his career as he would have it be, doesn’t refer to road, cyclo-cross or gravel, but instead to mountain biking, his other great passion, but the only one that hasn’t reciprocated his occasional flirtation, and has instead beat him back and punished him for his commitment to the other disciplines. 2025, he hopes, will be the year when he finally wins a mountain bike rainbow jersey, becoming a world champion in a fourth different discipline. “I’ve said it a few times: the mountain bike is something I would like to tick off. It is indeed a race I would like to win. For the rest, it doesn’t really matter to me,” he says.
“I think this is the perfect year to get in shape for the mountain bike. The [MTB] Worlds is something that would be really cool to win. It would be the last part of my career for myself.” Age – he’s just turned 30 – has been decisive, too. “This is the main thing, especially because this is perhaps the moment to try to become world champion in my best years.” The consequence of prioritising mountain biking is that Van der Poel will not be at the Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda in late September. “The Worlds on the road is not something I want to do.” And nor was it ever really a possibility. “I didn’t really think about it for long because it was immediately clear that it wasn’t really something for me. It’s also at altitude, something that is already difficult for me, and then with the course they presented, I don’t really think it’s something I have a chance of winning.”
Before he picks up his chunkier and muddiest Canyon, though, Van der Poel is a road rider in the meantime. This spring he can claim a third consecutive Alpecin-Deceuninck victory at Milan-Sanremo, become the outright record holder of the most Tour of Flanders titles with four, and chalk up a Paris-Roubaix hat-trick, a feat only achieved twice before and not achieved since Francesco Moser in 1980. “I think it is realistic, yes,” he says of his prospects in the Hell of the North, “but Roubaix is a special race. Of course, good legs is the first thing, but you also need a bit of luck on your side to win this race.” Good fortune often deserts his career adversary Wout van Aert, but rarely him.
Ominously for Van Aert and the many other victims of Van der Poel’s beatings, the Dutchman reckons he’s never been in better physical shape, free of back pain that has previously bothered him. “I’ve had a few good years behind me and I still feel very good,” he adds. “Also in training, I don't have the impression that it [the back] is getting worse now.” And mentally, he’s as free as ever. “I think it’s a bit easier for me to make the right choices these days. I also have a bit less stress in the run-up to competitions. I said the same before the Cyclo-cross World Championships [in early February] – I don’t think I’ve ever worked towards a Worlds as relaxed as this one. And I could only lose, so that makes it [the victory] pleasant.” Motivation, despite accomplishing pretty much everything within reach of his wide spectrum of capabilities, isn’t hard to source. “Quite big,” is how he describes his level of desire. “It remains fun, and especially because you realise that it is coming to an end, so it is more fun to enjoy everything.”
After the Classics, comes the Tour de France. He was considering skipping the Tour, telling Belgian TV channel Sporza in December that “it’s a race I don’t really like”, but he’ll be there, supporting Jasper Philipsen in his quest to win the opening stage in Lille, and then to chase his own stage victories. “I hope I can do better than I did last year,” he says. “I definitely have good memories of the race, especially my first Tour [when he won a stage and wore yellow for six days]. It’s not that I don’t like the Tour, but there are other races that maybe I like a bit more. That's normal, I think every racer has their favourite races, but I’m always very motivated to try to win in the Tour. I’ve only won one stage, so hopefully I can win another stage this year.”
The season, however, is mostly geared around mountain biking. Win that, joining Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos as world champions in four separate disciplines, and he’ll enter cycling immortality. But he won’t stop there, hinting at future participation in the Vuelta a España as a new long-term goal, as well as tallying up more spring victories. “The focus for the coming years will mainly be on the road and on the Classics. If I’m still healthy and still enjoy cycling, why stop?”
