No time for your own afterparty and 13 km run… in Spain: Van der Poel’s crazy 24 hours after the Ronde

Mathieu van der Poel did not rest on his laurels. On the contrary. The morning after his victory in the Tour, the world champion was back on his bike, and in the afternoon he even completed a brisk pace run. And all this after he had to rush to the airport for his flight to Spain after the podium ceremony. A selection from the “day after” of MVDP.

On Sunday evening, Alpecin-Deceuninck organized a modest afterparty to celebrate Mathieu van der Poel’s victory in the Tour of Flanders.

Only: the leader himself was not present.

After the podium ceremony and all the interviews, Van der Poel immediately headed to the airport to take the first flight to Alicante – around 9 p.m. The Alpecin leader had ultimately decided to complete his preparation for Paris-Roubaix in Spain.

After all, it is no longer a secret that the Calpe-Dénia region has become the favorite training destination of the world champion. He bought a house there two years ago.

He immediately felt very motivated.

Training buddy Freddy Ovett

After the world champion landed late in Spain and caught up on his well-deserved night’s sleep, he met up with his regular training buddy and Zwift phenomenon Freddy Ovett the morning after the Tour.

The two immediately set off together for a recovery ride of almost 80 kilometers with an elevation gain of 940 meters at an average speed of 31.4 kilometers per hour.

With “Big dog” as the caption, Ovett shared some images of a shiny Van der Poel on his bike on his social media channels. To conclude, the duo celebrated Van der Poel’s victory with an almond croissant.

Yet the day was far from over for the world champion. In the early evening, Van der Poel put on his running shoes again to go for another run with his buddy.

“He immediately felt very motivated,” Ovett assured us. That was by no means a lie. The duo walked another 13.56 kilometers around Dénia in just under an hour.

For the Strava freaks: that is an average of 4.36 minutes per kilometer. For the non-Strava freaks: at a brisk pace.

And all this barely 24 hours after the war of attrition in the Tour.