Dutch champion Mathieu Van der Poel was arrested by police on Saturday evening after an altercation in his hotel with two teenage girls. He was released before the race, in the early morning.
Le Monde with AFP
He arrived in Australia with a favorite status for the world road championships. But the Dutch cyclist Mathieu Van der Poel will finally have to respond to Australian assault against two teenage girls.
Arrested by police on Saturday September 24 evening before being released Sunday in the early morning, the Dutchman took the start of the world’s online race in Wollongong, the queen event. But he set off on the ground after only about thirty kilometers, at the end of strength and “mentally destroyed”.
According to Christoph Roodhooft, the manager of his professional team Alpecin-Fenix, the multiple world champion of Cyclocross did not “sleep the night”, after an incident that occurred on Saturday evening in the hotel of Dutch in Brighton-le-Sands, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, revealed by the Flemish chain Sporza.
“I was fed up”
“At around 10:40 p.m. on Saturday, a man was involved in a verbal altercation with two teenage girls aged 13 and 14 in a hotel in Brighton-le-Sands,” the police said in a statement to the agency France-Presse (AFP), without revealing, as usual, the identity of Van der Poel.
“According to the alleged facts, he pushed the two teenage girls, one falling to the floor and the other being projected against a wall, causing him a small scratch at the elbow”, details the text. “The hotel management was notified and then called the police” and “a 27 -year -old man was arrested shortly after”, before being “taken to the Kogarah police station” where he was “charged for Two cases of attack, “added the police.
Builded under bail, Van der Poel, whose passport was seized by the authorities, must now appear before the Sutherland court on Tuesday.
At the start of the online race, Van der Poel did not denote 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 told.
coup de thunder in the peloton
“Mathieu went to bed at 9 p.m. and at midnight there was always noise. Children played in the corridor and struck his door. He came out to tell them to stop but obviously not in the right way “said Christoph Roodhoft, interviewed by the press.
Returned to his room “at four in the morning”, Van der Poel then did not close the eye of the night, according to the manager of his team. “It is certainly not ideal, it is even a disaster, but I can’t do anything about it. I’m going to do my best,” said the runner before starting. He abandoned very early in the race, before rushing into a white SUV, without saying a word.
The thunderclap shook the peloton. “What? He said hello to me at the start!” Launched the double title holder Julian Alapahilippe to his coach, Thomas Voeckler, when he went to his height during the race to teach him that Van Der Poel had “covered”.
“He is very disappointed, he is mentally destroyed,” reported Christoph Roodhooft. “He had a lot of ambitions for this race. He had been gaining momentum for two months and had found the joy of running after his difficult tour of France.” But rather than on a potential podium, the future of Mathieu Van der Poel will play Tuesday in court.