These are Mathieu van der Poel's main goals for 2025 - Participating in the Tour de France is a big surprise

Van der Poel, coming off a flawless winter, is ambitiously looking ahead. He won all eight of his cyclo-cross races, including the World Championship in Liévin, France. It was his seventh world title, making him the joint record holder alongside Erik De Vlaeminck. His broken rib, sustained after crashing into a pole right after Christmas, didn’t hinder him much in cyclo-cross, so it shouldn’t pose any issues at all on the road.

That means the peloton should be wary of Van der Poel, who, in between cyclo-cross races, spent nearly his entire winter in Spain — coming back not only with tanned calves but also with excellent preparation. And as we saw in 2024, a well-prepared Van der Poel is capable of great things. Who could forget how he single-handedly helped Jasper Philipsen win Milan-San Remo? Or how he dominated by winning E3 Harelbeke, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix?

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The big question marks in Van der Poel’s schedule never concern the spring classics. Those remain fairly consistent each year, and 2025 is no exception. This means Van der Poel will start his road season at Tirreno-Adriatico. From there, he will race Milan-San Remo, E3 Harelbeke, the Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix. "Do I want to be the first to win the Tour of Flanders four times? It’s kind of like with the cyclo-cross world championships. I focus more on the race itself than on records," said the 30-year-old rider. He will likely skip Gent-Wevelgem, while his participation in Dwars door Vlaanderen remains uncertain.

But which Grand Tour will Van der Poel race? In recent years, his post-spring schedule has varied quite a bit. In 2021, he combined the Tour de France (where he won a stage and wore the yellow jersey) with the Olympic mountain bike race. In 2022, he did the Giro d’Italia (winning a stage and wearing the pink jersey for a bit) followed by the Tour. In 2023, he completed his first full Tour de France, and in 2024, he rode it again, though in both editions, he never fully raced for himself due to physical setbacks.

In 2025, the Dutchman will 'simply' be back in the Tour de France. "There are opportunities for both me and Jasper Philipsen in the first week. Hopefully, I can win another stage," Van der Poel said.

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That leaves the World Championships in the fall, which in 2025 will be held in Rwanda. The first-ever African World Championships are clearly suited for climbers, but Van der Poel already showed in 2024 that he is willing to shed some weight to compete on tough climbs. He finished third in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and third in a very challenging Worlds edition in Zurich. Still, Van der Poel is putting the Rwanda Worlds out of his mind for now. "Rwanda is too tough, so it makes sense to focus fully on the Mountain Bike World Championships and check that off the list," the Dutchman stated.

His mountain biking ambitions were initially uncertain, as he has long been toying with the discipline ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where he hopes to finally achieve his goal. That uncertainty is now gone — he is fully committed to mountain biking in 2025.