Teams & Riders The "MVP" Mathieu Van der Poel Road Discussion Thread

[Spine Concept]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2005690626340442459

Just someone being careless it looks like

He made the same movements while other riders passed by, he just had to save his careless moment for when MVP passed by. Just makes it so hard to keep excusing these types of incidents. Oh well. Just another bonehead I guess.

 

[ChasingPotatoes]

He made the same movements while other riders passed by, he just had to save his careless moment for when MVP passed by. Just makes it so hard to keep excusing these types of incidents. Oh well. Just another bonehead I guess.

The guy involved in the incident is, according to the latest info, a legitimate lover of the race but (as far as I see on the footage) clumsy / stupid (and maybe a bit drunk), without any 'hate' towards MvdP.

Still, this incident is used by you to make the above statement. I fear your prejudice is taking over.

You did miss the point though, because the context you added reframes the issue as random probability, while my argument is about motive, not odds.

If this were just a numbers game, abuse would be spread across riders. It isn’t. It follows Van der Poel across disciplines, countries, and years, and the common factor is that he’s Dutch and beating Belgians on “their” terrain.

So yes, Belgian fans, agreed. But reducing it to odds ignores the nationalistic motive, which is the actual point.

Yes, I totally agree it's about motive. And now, if you understand what I'm saying (I say it again, but more clearly): The odds are so low (6 years, more than a million people, 8 incidents.), that the motive brought up by you (nationalistic) is at least open for debate, and many more Cx are without incidents than there are Cx with incidents.

There have been other incidents with 'fans' in cyclocross and the main factors could as well be low IQ, alcohol and fandom in general ((see Nys vs. Wellens, both Belgians but the Nys hate was there too).
Some of the incidents (and subsequent incidents) could also be motivated by riders challenging fans (Nys, Wellens, Groenendaal, MvdP all 'attacking' fans at one point or another).

 

[Spine Concept]

The guy involved in the incident is, according to the latest info, a legitimate lover of the race but (as far as I see on the footage) clumsy / stupid (and maybe a bit drunk), without any 'hate' towards MvdP.

Still, this incident is used by you to make the above statement. I fear your prejudice is taking over.


Yes, I totally agree it's about motive. And now, if you understand what I'm saying (I say it again, but more clearly): The odds are so low (6 years, more than a million people, 8 incidents.), that the motive brought up by you (nationalistic) is at least open for debate, and many more Cx are without incidents than there are Cx with incidents.

There have been other incidents with 'fans' in cyclocross and the main factors could as well be low IQ, alcohol and fandom in general ((see Nys vs. Wellens, both Belgians but the Nys hate was there too).
Some of the incidents (and subsequent incidents) could also be motivated by riders challenging fans (Nys, Wellens, Groenendaal, MvdP all 'attacking' fans at one point or another).

If you actually cared to read my previous post regarding this incident you'd have read that I’m not claiming to know his motive, and I explicitly said it could be unintentional. But you don’t know his motive either.

The point isn’t proving intent from one clip, it’s that when similar incidents keep happening to the same rider, constant defaulting to “accident” naturally invites scrutiny. That’s not prejudice, it’s a reasonable reaction to a repeated pattern.

Regarding your other point. Alcohol, low IQ, provocation; sure, those exist everywhere. But they don’t explain selection. Plenty of riders beat local heroes or interact with fans without seeing this pattern follow them across disciplines, countries, and years.

A low number of incidents doesn’t refute motive. Rare events clustering around the same rider is exactly what a pattern looks like. The question isn’t why fans misbehave, but why it keeps happening to him. On that question, nationality remains the most consistent explanation.

Finally, regarding the other incidents you mentioned for other riders like Nys, Wellens, Iserbyt, you can point to one-off, isolated incidents spread over nearly 20 years (2005, 2012, and 2024). Serious, yes, but sporadic.

With Van der Poel, the incidents are more frequent, across disciplines, countries, and seasons, and they keep following the same rider. That difference in volume and consistency matters.

So this isn’t “fans sometimes misbehave.” That happens to everyone.
It’s that Mathieu is an outlier, and pretending his case is comparable to others glosses over that distinction.

 

[Panda Claws]

It's a MVP thread on a cycling forum and he's been subjected to a disproportionate amount of abuse by these losers. The most recent one was today. So it's odd that you think it's odd that it's discussed in here. It deserves every bit of attention it gets.

Not what I said.

The incident themselves sure. It's only normal that they are discussed here.
Little to talk about on the topic of it being mostly Belgian fans though. Possible motives have long since been identified.

 

[Spine Concept]

Not what I said.

The incident themselves sure. It's only normal that they are discussed here.
Little to talk about on the topic of it being mostly Belgian fans though. Possible motives have long since been identified.

If the motives have “long since been identified,” that’s a reason to keep discussing it, not to drop it. The same incidents keep happening.

Discussing the incidents is normal, but discussing the pattern and whether enough is being done about it is just as legitimate. Saying “we already know why” doesn’t make it go away.

 

[vappaxbipmv]

Wrong again.

Those two things don’t go together.
Saying “you shouldn’t have to endure it” while also saying “you shouldn’t be bothered by it” is basically normalizing the behavior.

Being a professional athlete means accepting that it might happen, not that it’s acceptable or irrelevant when it does. Verbal abuse is still abuse, and it often goes hand-in-hand with the physical incidents, which is why it belongs in the description.

Tolerance ≠ justification. It's quite simple really.

You're misinterpreting what I said. "You shouldn't have to endure it" as in people shouldn't do it in the first place. But if they do, it shouldn't throw you off. Never said it's okay if it happens because it isn't bit people, especially drunk people, will say a lot and it shouldn't affect you

 

[Spine Concept]

You're misinterpreting what I said. "You shouldn't have to endure it" as in people shouldn't do it in the first place. But if they do, it shouldn't throw you off. Never said it's okay if it happens because it isn't bit people, especially drunk people, will say a lot and it shouldn't affect you

Fair enough, then this is mostly a wording issue. I agree that athletes shouldn’t be thrown off by every shout from the crowd, and that professionals develop coping mechanisms for that.

Where I disagree is that this makes verbal abuse irrelevant or something to exclude from the record. The fact that riders can deal with it doesn’t change what it is, nor does it justify normalizing it as “part of the job,” especially when it regularly escalates into physical interference.

So I’m not saying athletes are fragile. I’m saying abusive behavior, verbal or physical, still deserves to be called out and documented, regardless of whether it ultimately affects performance, and so it cannot simply be "excluded" or "left out".

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

It's always Belgian fans doing this to him. Even in Denmark and the Netherlands it was still Belgian fans.

Except that on the last two case, you admit that you don't know the nationality of those involved.

He also gets enormous amounts of applause and verbal support on races in Belgium, presumably from Belgians.

Please do not try to turn the irresponsibility and inability of a very small proportion of a crowd and of a nation into some kind of national characteristic.