{"id":130217,"date":"2026-09-16T11:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T11:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/16\/tour-de-luxembourg-is-mathieu-van-der-poels-final-tune-up-for-his-road-worlds-bid\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T11:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T11:22:15","slug":"tour-de-luxembourg-is-mathieu-van-der-poels-final-tune-up-for-his-road-worlds-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/16\/tour-de-luxembourg-is-mathieu-van-der-poels-final-tune-up-for-his-road-worlds-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de Luxembourg is Mathieu van der Poel\u2019s final tune-up for his road worlds bid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Mathieu van der Poel has one more race on the calendar before the big one.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s taking a different route than some other riders have, but it\u2019s one that worked pretty well for him in the past. A lot of the top pros racing the road worlds came to Canada for Les Grands Prix Cyclistes de Qu\u00e9bec et de Montr\u00e9al and will stick around in North America\u2014Qu\u00e9bec and Colorado seem popular\u2014before the race at the end of the month. But Mvdp is staying in Europe for a bit longer.<\/p>\n<h2>2026 Tour de Luxembourg<\/h2>\n<p>In 2024, when he was defending his rainbow jersey, he finished third to Tadej Poga\u010dar. It was Pogi\u2019s first of two rainbow jerseys, and he did it in unbelievable style, staying away for almost 100 km. Although van der Poel couldn\u2019t repeat, he did take an impressive third on a course which didn\u2019t exactly suit him. And right before it, he did the Tour de Luxembourg, where he finished second overall, won the points jersey, as well as snagging a dub on Stage 1. So to get ready for the road worlds this year, he\u2019s lining up again at the Tour de Luxembourg on Wednesday. It\u2019s five solid days of racing, and he is using the hilly stage race as his final test ahead of the 2026 worlds in Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n<h2>5 days of racing<\/h2>\n<p>It is a relatively compact field compared with some of the biggest stage races, but Luxembourg should still provide plenty of opportunities to test the legs. And given the proximity to the worlds, it should give him a bit of a bump just in time, and plenty of time to recover before the world champs on Sept. 27. Van der Poel will also have some help from his teammate from Toronto, Noah Ramsay. The 23-year-old talent is once again \u201criding up\u201d from the Conti squad to race in the big leagues. In early August, he had another solid ride at Kreiz Breizh Elites. He finished fourth on Stage 4. His last race was a few days ago at the GP de Fourmies. He was having a good day, in the break for over 50 km, until a crash forced him to abandon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"nAQl36DMVu\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/tadej-pogacar-gives-the-cycling-world-an-update\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tadej Poga\u010dar gives the cycling world an update<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"\u201cTadej Poga\u010dar gives the cycling world an update\u201d \u2014 Canadian Cycling Magazine\" src=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/tadej-pogacar-gives-the-cycling-world-an-update\/embed\/#?secret=8otWexR0jy#?secret=nAQl36DMVu\" data-secret=\"nAQl36DMVu\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The world\u2019s best head to Canada for a week of racing, beginning on Sept. 20. Juniors, under-23s and elites will fight for rainbow jerseys and medals on the streets of Montr\u00e9al. It\u2019s going to be awesome.<\/p>\n<p>As far as Luxembourg, the 157-km opening stage finishes with a short, steep uphill run to the line, while stage 3 brings a harder finale packed with several climbs.<\/p>\n<h2>Some tough days at the end<\/h2>\n<p>The biggest GC shake-up could come on Saturday. The 20.4-km individual time trial includes a 900-metre climb at 10 per cent before a downhill finish, making it considerably more than a flat-out TT specialist\u2019s playground. Van der Poel will most likely give\u2019er in the chrono \u2014 because when he wants to, he\u2019s pretty good at them, and it would be a good test for his fitness ahead of the road worlds. He actually came so, so close to winning his first TT as a pro back at the Tour de Suisse in June. Poga\u010dar beat him by the narrowest of margins, 0.04 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s finale covers 177 km and includes three times up the Pabelergberg. It\u2019s an 800-metre ramp averaging around 8 per cent. That should bite the last time up.<\/p>\n<h2>Is Montreal too hard for the Classics stars?<\/h2>\n<p>For Van der Poel, it is five days to sharpen everything before the rainbow-jersey fight begins.<br \/>The question many are wondering: is the climb on Camilien-Houde in Montreal too long for guys like van der Poel and van Aert?<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert has finished second on the same course at <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/isaac-del-toro-wins-the-grand-prix-cycliste-de-montreal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Le Grand Prix Cycliste de Montr\u00e9al<\/a>, but the one-day is considerably shorter than the 273-km road worlds. <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/evenepoel-sees-a-tough-montreal-worlds-course-for-van-der-poel-and-van-aert\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Remco Evenepoel<\/a>, never one to be shy of sharing his opinions, thinks the Dutch and Belgian ace are simply too heavy for the climb, which is just short of two km. But in a few weeks, we cycling fans can sit back and see for ourselves as the world\u2019s best elite men (minus, sigh, Pogi) duke it out for the win.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n\t\t! function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) {\n\t\t\tif (f.fbq) return;\n\t\t\tn = f.fbq = function() {\n\t\t\t\tn.callMethod ?\n\t\t\t\t\tn.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments)\n\t\t\t};\n\t\t\tif (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n;\n\t\t\tn.push = n;\n\t\t\tn.loaded = !0;\n\t\t\tn.version = '2.0';\n\t\t\tn.queue = [];\n\t\t\tt = b.createElement(e);\n\t\t\tt.async = !0;\n\t\t\tt.src = v;\n\t\t\ts = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n\t\t\ts.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s)\n\t\t}(window, document, 'script',\n\t\t\t'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n\t\tfbq('init', '900220307025564');\n\t\tfbq('track', 'PageView');\n\t<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/tour-de-luxembourg-is-mathieu-van-der-poels-final-tune-up-for-his-road-worlds-bid\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mathieu van der Poel has one more race on the calendar before the big one. He\u2019s taking a different route than some other riders have, but it\u2019s one that worked pretty well for him in the past. A lot of the top pros racing the road worlds came to Canada for Les Grands Prix Cyclistes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130217"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}