Mathieu van der Poel left after thirty kilometers in the road race of the World Cycling Championships in Australia. The leader of the Dutch team did this after an incident-rich night in which he had been detained at the police station for several hours. Van der Poel was taken to make a statement after he ‘fallen out’ against children in the corridor in the cyclist’s hotel who kept him from sleeping.
According to Christoph Roodhooft, his manager at the Alpecin-Deceuninck team, Van der Poel has to stay in Australia until Tuesday to appear. “Right opposite his room were two rooms with children. Mathieu went to sleep at nine o’clock in the evening, but was still awake three hours later because there was continuous noise in the hallway. There was a knock on doors. the third time it happened, he went outside. It turned out that no parents were there. Mathieu became angry. Then apparently the police were called and he had to make a statement.”
“This is a disaster, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
The Australian police told AFP news agency that a 27-year-old man had been arrested in a hotel, but could not confirm whether it was Van der Poel for privacy reasons. The man is suspected of assaulting two girls aged 13 and 14. They would have been pushed, one of the two has a small abrasion.
“This is a disaster, but I can’t change it anymore,” 27-year-old Van der Poel told Belgian channel Sporza before the game. “A number of children in the hallway found it necessary to knock on the door continuously while I wanted to sleep for an important day. After a few times I was done with it. I didn’t ask them so kindly to stop. Then they I called the police and I was taken.”
“He’s disappointed now.”
Before the start, Van der Poel said he wanted to ‘make the best of it’, but after thirty kilometers he squeezed the brakes. “Mathieu wanted to set something straight here after he got off the Tour de France. The condition was not top, but he believed in it. He is now disappointed because he has had the focus on this World Cup for two months. And then he is sitting suddenly in jail,” says Roodhooft.