Mathieu van der Poel’s words ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

Van der Poel travelled from Spain to Belgium on Wednesday and already rode a recon of the course on Thursday. He has never raced the Opening Weekend before — and, he admits, it had been nagging at him for a while. “I watched the race on TV in recent years and each time I thought it was a shame I wasn’t there,” he said.

“It’s been in my head for a while to start it at least once this year,” Van der Poel continued, making clear he rates Omloop highly. “If I ever managed to win it, it would definitely be a nice race to have on my palmarès. And an extra race day towards the coming weeks and months is never a bad thing.”

The final decision to add Omloop was made on Monday, as planned. After claiming an eighth cyclo-cross world title, Van der Poel first took a week off to go skiing in Italy, before getting back on the bike. “In that short period you obviously don’t lose your condition, but it was a bit disappointing, if I’m honest,” he admitted.

Van der Poel said he had to grit his teeth at first, but felt his form return quickly. The training block went well, and that was enough for the green light. “By now I feel my level is good enough to start Omloop. My spring programme has barely changed compared to recent years. That has proven to be a successful recipe, so I don’t really see the need to move away from it.”

Even though Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is new on Van der Poel’s race calendar, Thursday’s recon — with good friend Greg Van Avermaet — did not bring many surprises. “It’s not like I don’t know the roads in the Flemish Ardennes,” he said. “There wasn’t really anything that surprised me. But it was still good to see the sequence of climbs again.”

Van der Poel called Saturday “a tough race”. “One that often stays quite closed, and especially a race where it’s difficult to make big differences,” he explained. “The Muur and the Bosberg are important, but whether it will happen there tomorrow, we’ll only see then.”

“Not all the pressure is on my shoulders,” Van der Poel added. “I always start with ambition, but with Jasper Philipsen and Kaden Groves we also have guys in reserve who can survive and maybe win via a sprint. That creates possibilities.”