'That hurt,' sighs Van der Poel after stage 1 victory at the Tour of Luxembourg

Everyone thought Van der Poel would wait for the sprint to the Vismarkt, just as he did two years ago. But this time, he accelerated on the second-to-last climb. “We wanted to climb a bit faster to shake off the sprinters, but… yeah, I think it went a little too fast,” he laughs in the flash interview. “I was out there alone, but I knew it would be really tough to stay out front on my own with the descent to the finish.”

He wasn’t completely alone, but he didn’t have much use for the continental rider Eike Behrens (Lotto Kern-Haus). That’s why he dropped back to the peloton. “I tried to recover a bit.” And so Van der Poel was ready for the sprint. “Kragh Andersen attacked from very, very far back, and that… that hurt. But in the end, I just managed to pass him before the finish line.”

And so the scenes after the finish did remind us a little of Paris: a completely exhausted Van der Poel. But with his mindset, he never gives up. “Yeah, it’s mostly in my head. But my legs hurt like crazy, too. Still, I remembered the finish from two years ago and, well, I knew it was a really, really tough finish. I just managed to find enough strength to make it to the finish line.”

With his victory in the first stage, the Dutchman has already shown that he’s in excellent form heading into the World Championships in Canada—the reason he’s racing in Luxembourg. There, he hopes to compete for his second world title on the road. But first, the Tour of Luxembourg still needs to be completed. And he could very well end up being the overall winner there.

Even though getting in shape for the World Championships is his main goal, Van der Poel does think he can contend for the overall victory. “I think I managed to do both two years ago,” he says, referring to contending for the overall victory and the world title. “It was a close call in the final stage, but yeah, I think we’re going to try again this year to win stages and also the overall classification if possible.”

1. Mathieu van der Poel
2. Pierre Gautherat
3. Marijn van den Berg
4. Per Strand Hagenes
5. Jasper Stuyven