{"id":354844,"date":"2025-08-18T18:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354844\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T18:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:58:10","slug":"mathieu-van-de-poel-will-not-race-road-world-championships-as-tour-de-france-double-stage-winner-thymen-arensman-named-as-dutch-team-leader-for-rwanda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354844\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathieu van de Poel will not race Road World Championships as Tour de France double stage winner Thymen Arensman named as Dutch team leader for Rwanda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mathieu van der Poel <\/a>will not join the Dutch elite men’s line-up in the 2025 Road World Championships, the national federation confirmed on Monday. The Netherlands will instead aim to see what 2025 Tour de France <\/a>double stage winner Thymen Arensman can achieve in his place.<\/p>\n

The Dutch men’s lineup for the climbing-heavy World Championships in Rwanda<\/a> will be headed by Arensman, a winner both in the Pyrenees and Alps this July, with veteran star and former Il Lombardia champion Bauke Mollema<\/a> expected to be another key player for the team.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last week the Dutch National Federation (KNWU) announced the elite women’s line-up for September’s Road Worlds, <\/a>including some major favourites of the calibre of Demi Vollering, Marianne Vos and Anna van der Breggen.<\/p>\n

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In contrast, the men’s team doesn’t have a stand-out pre-race contender, sports director Koos Moerenhout said in a KNWU press release, but the Dutch will nonetheless retain serious options one of the most arduous World Championships courses in history.<\/p>\n

“We don’t have a clear favorite this year, like we did with Mathieu van der Poel,” Moerenhout said, “[But] that gives us flexibility when approaching this race.<\/p>\n

“Thymen Arensman has, of course, done some fantastic performances and he will certainly be a key player. But several other riders will also have the freedom to compete heading into the final.”<\/p>\n

The Dutch team also includes Sam Oomen, Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and Tour de France stage winner Wout Poels , Frank van den Broek, and former Giro d’Italia mountains classification champion Koen Bouwman. Arensman will also take part in the time trial, set to take place on September 21.<\/p>\n

“Our chances will mainly consist of trying to anticipate, reading the race, then getting in a breakaway. On the other hand, it will also be a real battle of attrition,” Moerenhout said.<\/p>\n

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“Our riders have done the right preparation and have the right qualities, so I hope to see as many of them as possible in the final. And perhaps we can even pull off a surprise.”<\/p>\n

Van der Poel, the 2023 Road World Champion, will be heading to the Renewi Tour, which runs from Wednesday, August 20 to Sunday August 24. He has now added a mountain bike XCO World Cup in Les Gets on August 31 to his program for this summer.<\/p>\n

He will then mostly likely attempt to win a world title at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships elite men’s XCO race in Valais, Switzerland on September 14,. However, he told Nieuwsblad<\/a> on Sunday at a criterium in Belgium that after catching pneumonia during the Tour and abandoning that race due to the knock-on effects, he is not yet certain of participating.<\/p>\n

“It’s basically on my schedule, but we first have to see how it goes in the Renewi Tour” – where he is a former winner, back in 2020 – “and the World Cup in Les Gets. The Renewi Tour is necessary for me to regain race rhythm for my mountain biking,” Van der Poel, already a World Champion in the road, cyclocross and gravel specialities, told the Belgian newspaper.<\/p>\n

“The plan for the future is to ride more mountain bike races, so I can get a good starting position at the World Championships. But it was just very difficult this time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mathieu van der Poel will not join the Dutch elite men’s line-up in the 2025 Road World Championships,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-354844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115051306014890028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}