Mathieu van der Poel's team has now outlined more information about his back injury and it very much supports the remarks by his father, Adrie, who said in recent days be believed his son could be out of racing action for months.
His Alpecin Fenix team owners and doctor have outlined a scenario on which Van der Poel cannot event train at present and must rest as he is now enduring "chronic" pain in his back.
He is suffering from a condition known as retrolisthesis, which results from vertebra slipping backward on one another. It puts pressure on the spine and causes leg and back pain. Van der Poel has already opted out of the cyclocross season due to the injury.
“One of the discs in his back didn’t fully function as a shock absorber resulting in less movement in his lower back,” Van der Poel’s team doctor Guy De Schutter has said in an interview in the Belgian media.
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“The ligaments and muscles around became overloaded and the disc itself inflamed. The problems started in the Tour de Suisse and were worsened by that crash in (the Olympic MTB race). The systems in his lower back need a complete reset.”
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Dr De Schutter told Het Nieuwsblad Van der Poel must first become pain free and once he had progressed to that point he could then work on his back, including strength and stability.
“Then we can start to put pressure on it again and only then we can start building on basic fitness very slowly and monitor that very closely. This process takes a lot of time so we are not putting a deadline on it.”
Philip Roodhooft, the manager and co-owner of Alpecin Fenix, said Van de Poel needed rest, as it was the only remedy for his injury, adding there was no need for a medical intervention such as surgery.
“Mathieu is 27 years old and still has a long career to go,” Roodhooft added. “The focus now is on regaining full fitness, so we don’t think about his racing program. It could be Strade, Tour of Flanders, Tour de France or Il Lombardia. Meantime, we'll try to get the best results possible with the rest of the team.
“Tour of Flanders is on April 3rd, it seems far away but is just around the corner. To build form you need seven or eight weeks, so it will be close. We won’t start to early and cause this pain to become chronic for Mathieu."
