As expected, Mathieu van der Poel has the chance to ride the Tour of Lombardy this season. His team Alpecin-Fenix received a wildcard for the Italian cycling monument on Tuesday.
The Belgian employer of Van der Poel has also received wildcards for, among others, Milan-San Remo, Strade Bianche and Tirreno-Adriatico, although that was already known, as well as that Alpecin-Fenix will not start in the Giro d’Italia.
Thanks to the start tickets for the Tour of Lombardy and Milan-San Remo, Van der Poel can participate in all five monuments, because he can also start in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
The 25-year-old Dutchman, on the other hand, will be missing from the three major rounds; to his disappointment, Alpecin-Fenix was not invited to the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España earlier this year.
On the redesigned UCI calendar, the Tour of Lombardy on August 15 is one of the first major races of the year, after Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo. Lombardy coincides partly with the Critérium du Dauphiné.
In the coming years, Van der Poel will combine road cycling with cyclocross and mountain biking and hopes to win the world title in all three disciplines. He already succeeded in cyclocross in 2015, 2019 and 2020.
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