Mathieu van der Poel has successfully appealed his conviction for assault arising from an incident when young girls repeatedly knocked at his hotel door in Australia while he was trying to rest before the World Championships the following day.
The Dutch rider was initially convicted, fined and banned from re-entering Australia for three years as a result of the conviction. However, he has appealed and has had the conviction overturned. The appeal judge, at a hearing on Tuesday, was critical of the prank the girls played on him and the fact they were unsupervised in the hotel at the time.
The 27-year-old Alpecin-Deceuninck rider pleaded guilty last September to two counts of assault after he chased two young girls - aged 13 and 14 years - away from his hotel room door and into their room at the Novotel Sydney Brighton Beach on September 24th, the night before the Worlds road race.
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The children had knocked on his door several times and ran away. When Van der Poel responded and chased them the police were called and he spent most of the night in a police station after he was arrested. While he started the race in Wollongong later that morning, he pulled out very early.
His lawyer, Michael Bowe, told Tuesday's appeal court hearing the whole incident had resulted in "exceptional embarrassment and humiliation" for the rider, whose efforts in the Worlds race were also derailed due to the incident. He added the girls were trying to "deliberately to bait (van der Poel) and wind him up" and that his client had fallen for it.
Judge Ian Bourke said the prank played on van der Poel was "silly conduct" by "unsupervised children". He added van der Poel had been subjected to "very significant extra curial punishment" because of the coverage of the incident and the fact he withdrew from the race the next day.
The convictions on the two counts of common assault were quashed, and the fines of $1,500 imposed by a court just days after the incident will not have to be paid. Furthermore, no travel ban applies to Van der Poel because he no longer has a conviction.
