World Champion Mathieu van der Poel will start his 2024 road season with the defence of his Milan-San Remo title on March 16, as confirmed by Alpecin-Deceuninck.
Following the completion of one of the most dominant seasons in cyclocross history culminating in a sixth world title, Van der Poel is hoping to add more Monuments to his palmarès in spring before targeting the Paris Olympics as the key goal in summer.
Van der Poel was rumoured to open his 2024 account on the road at Strade Bianche as he did in 2023. However, he won't be returning to the white gravel roads in Tuscany and instead hopes to power away on the Poggio as he did last year at the Italian Monument.
While he won't be tackling tomorrow's Omloop Het Nieuwsblad as close rival Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) will be, following his debut in Italy, Van der Poel is set to take on E3 Saxo Classic and Gent Wevelgem in preparation for the key Flemish race of spring, the Tour of Flanders.
Van der Poel will be looking to retain the crown in Flanders after losing out to Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in 2023. He'll similarly hope to avoid any sort of World Champion's curse riding in the rainbow bands.
With the Slovenian set to join an exclusive club of riders to not return to De Ronde and defend their title, Van der Poel and Van Aert will likely line up as the two heavy favourites.
As a two-time winner and incredibly consistent performer at the Tour of Flanders with five appearances, four top-two finishes and only finish off the podium, Van der Poel will be confident he can equal the all-time record for wins at De Ronde with three.
This would put him on par with greats such as Fabian Cancellara, Tom Boonen and Johan Museeuw.
Following Flanders, Van der Poel will return for another Sunday in Hell at Paris-Roubaix, where a late puncture for Van Aert removed any chance of a historic battle between the pair in the fabled velodrome. The last rider to win Paris-Roubaix back-to-back was Boonen in 2009.
The Ardennes is where Van der Poel's calendar gets more interesting with a return to the hillier races for the World Champion.
Amstel Gold Race is confirmed, which is now a race synonymous with Van der Poel after his epic comeback and superhuman victory at the Dutch Classic in 2019. He skipped the race in 2023 and was fourth at his last appearance there in 2022.
Following this is an, as of yet, undecided return to La Doyenne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Van der Poel has only raced there once, four years ago, and he was sixth behind the top quality lead group containing Pogačar, Julian Alapahilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) and eventual winner Primož Roglič (at the time Jumbo-Visma).
With this schedule confirmed during Jasper Philipsen's pre-Omloop Het Nieuwsblad press conference, Van der Poel won't be riding a stage race until May at the earliest, with Tirreno-Adriatico reportedly part of the original plan but now removed.
