The Dutchman was arrested on the night of Saturday to Sunday after an altercation with two teenage girls in the hotel where his team stayed, on the eve of the World Cup race in Australia. He pleaded guilty, received a fine and can leave the country.
by (with AFP)
The bad film in which Mathieu Van der Poel found himself main actor is about to end. Monday, September 26, the Dutch cyclist was authorized to return to Europe, after pleading guilty before the Australian assault on two teenage girls, on the night of Saturday to Sunday. He was ordered to pay fines of 1,000 and 500 Australian dollars (around 1,010 euros in total).
The grandson of Ryamond Poulidor was in New South Wales to participate in the online race of road cycling Worlds on Sunday in Wollongong. He took the start of the queen test of the discipline, of which he was one of the great favorites, but set to the ground after only about thirty kilometers, at the end of strength and “mentally destroyed” .
Because the 27-year-old runner had spent a good part of the previous night in a police station after an altercation with two young girls in the establishment where the Netherlands team stayed. “Around 10:40 p.m. Saturday, a man was involved in a verbal altercation with two 13 and 14 years old teenage girls in a hotel in Brighton-le-Sands, then reported the police, without mentioning the name of the Dutch. According to the facts presumed, he would have pushed the two adolescent girls, one falling to the floor and the other being projected against a wall, causing him a small scratch at the elbow. “
” after a while, J ‘was fed up “
“Mathieu went to bed at 9 p.m. and, at midnight, there was always noise, said Christoph Roodhooft, the Van Der professional team for his part. Poel. Children played in the corridor and struck against his door. He came out to tell them to stop, but obviously not in the right way. “Returned to his room” at four in the morning “after being heard by the Police, van der Poel then did not close the eye of the night.
At the start of the online race, the runner had not denied the incident. “Yes, it’s true, there was a little argument,” he said to journalists. “I wanted to go to bed early last night, but there were lots of children in the hotel hallway who did not stop knocking on my door. After a while, I was fed up . I told them, in a very sympathetic way, to arrest. It was then that the police were called and took me to the post, he continued.
Mathieu van der Poel was initially summoned Tuesday before the Sutherland court, in the southern suburbs of Sydney. His passport, confiscated the day before by the authorities, was returned to him and the multiple world champion of Cyclocross will leave Australia, Monday evening.