Mathieu van der Poel also had a late-night visit from doping control at the Tour de France: 'That is nothing new'

It’s been one of the hottest topics in the Tour de France over the past few days: visits from anti-doping officials. Mathieu van der Poel spoke out about it after the time trial in Thonon-les-Bains, having also received a late-night visit from officials on the rest day. Unlike with some of his colleagues, this did not happen in the middle of the night.

Ahead of Stage 15, yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar and second-place rider Jonas Vingegaard received a visit from Tour de France officials in the middle of the night. Vingegaard—who, incidentally, withdrew from the race the following day after a crash—was woken up at 2 a.m., and Pogacar at 5 a.m.

The issue is also a hot topic among the riders. “Riders actually being woken up in the middle of the night… I’ve never heard of that before,” said Van der Poel, who isn’t exactly a fan of the anti-doping agencies’ “new” approach.

"I don't think that's the point. I don't think the testers themselves would be happy if you came to wake them up at two in the morning," the Dutchman says, logically speaking from the perspective of a Tour de France participant.

The day after the inspections of Vingegaard and Pogacar, a number of teams received a late-night visit from the inspectors. Among those visited were Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Soudal-Quick Step, and Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Premier Tech.

"They were there late last night, yes. That's nothing new in itself. It was around 10:00 p.m., so it wasn't too bad," says Van der Poel. They showed up at the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe team—home to time trial winner Evenepoel —just before 11:00 p.m. “ Some riders were already asleep, but we cooperated fully,” the team said.