Mathieu van der Poel

Mathieu van der Poel was born in Kapellen on January 19, 1995, son of Adrie van der Poel and grandson of Raymond Poulidor.

Van der Poel’s pedigree first translated into underage success on the cyclocross circuit, though he also served notice of his ability on the road with gold in the junior road race at the 2013 World Championships in Florence.

In Tabor in 2015, Van der Poel claimed the first of four elite cyclocross world titles. Together with his contemporary Wout van Aert, he would dominate the cyclocross scene and it was only a matter of time before their rivalry extended to the road.

In his early years at senior level, Van der Poel raced sparingly but promisingly on the road, winning the Dutch title in 2018 and placing second in that year’s European Championships. The breakthrough came the following Spring, when Van der Poel sampled the Classics for the first time and enjoyed immediate success by winning Dwars door Vlaanderen and then scoring a remarkable comeback victory at Amstel Gold Race.

In the pandemic-interrupted 2020 season, Van der Poel beat Van Aert in a two-up sprint to win a dramatic edition of the Tour of Flanders, and he claimed an astounding victory ahead of a deep field at the 2021 Strade Bianche.

The 2021 road campaign also saw near misses at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, as well as a remarkable Tour de France debut in which Van der Poel won stage 2 at Mur de Bretagne and spent six days in the yellow jersey. Despite a nagging back injury, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider added another Tour of Flanders and Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2022, when he also won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia in Visegrad.

A rapid finisher, a solid time triallist and often overwhelming on punchy climbs, Van der Poel has also won medals in both the Mountain Bike and Gravel World Championships. Few riders in the history of cycling have been as versatile.

Van der Poel had the best year of his career in 2023, winning his fifth cyclocross world title, Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the road world championship title.

In 2024, he made history by winning both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the same year for only the 13th time in history.

Key Results

1st Ronde van Limburg 2014
1st Dwars door het Hageland - Aarschot 2017
1st overall Boucles de la Mayenne 2017

1st Brabantse Pijl 2019

1st Amstel Gold 2019

1st Tour of Flanders 2020, 2022

1st Strade Bianche 2021

1st Dwars door Vlaanderen 2019, 2022

1st Dutch National Elite Road Race 2018, 2020

1st Tour de France stage 2, 2021

1st Giro d'Italia stage 1, 2022

1st Milan-San Remo, 2023
1st Paris-Roubaix, 2023

1st UCI Road World Championship Elite Men's Road Race, 2023

Cyclocross

1st World Champion 2015, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023
1st European Champion 2017, 2018, 2019
1st Dutch National Champion 2015 - 2020

Mountain Bike

1st Dutch National Champion, 2018

1st European Champion, 2019

2nd World Cup XCO Overall, 2018

Gravel

3rd UCI World Championships, 2022