Mathieu van der Poel sustained a small fracture in his wrist during his return to mountain biking on Sunday. It is not yet known what the injury means for his participation in the Tour de France.
Van der Poel has a scaphoid fracture. This is a fracture of one of the carpal bones in the wrist joint that is connected to the radius. “This type of injury requires patience and careful monitoring,” his team Alpecin-Deceuninck writes in a medical update.
“The prognosis regarding the resumption of training and competition depends on how the swelling and pain develop in the coming days. For the time being, it is therefore too early to give a definitive recovery time.”
It is therefore not yet clear whether Van der Poel will have to cancel his participation in the Tour de France. The Tour de France starts on July 5. In preparation for the Tour, Van der Poel has the Critérium du Dauphiné on his program.
“The injury will be further and intensively monitored this week, with more clarity possibly emerging towards the end of the week – after a new check-up – regarding his program and his participation in the Dauphiné,” his team writes.
Van der Poel crashed twice
The thirty-year-old Van der Poel already crashed twice in the opening phase on Sunday in Nové Mesto, Czech Republic, during his return to mountain biking. He quit after half an hour.
It was Van der Poel’s first mountain bike race since the test event for the Paris Olympic Games in the fall of 2023. He took some rest after the spring classics on the road and only completed two training sessions on his mountain bike before the race in the Czech Republic.
Before the race in the Czech Republic, Van der Poel already said that he only wanted to focus on the Mountain Bike World Championships in September after the Tour de France. The world title on the mountain bike is still missing from his record, which includes world titles in road cycling, cyclo-cross and gravel cycling.