Mathieu van der Poel was "mentally a bit broken" going into today's elite men's road race at the World Championships in Wollongong, Australia, after being arrested at his team hotel just after midnight. The Dutch rider went out of his room to investigate after children repeatedly knocked at his door.
However, after remonstrating with the children - girls aged 12 and 13 - he was arrested and is charged with assault. He denies touching the girls. He was at the police station until 4am and is due to appear before the court in Australia on Tuesday, with his passport confiscated by New South Wales police. While he started the race today he abandoned very early.
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The boss of Van der Poel's trade team Alpecin-Deceuninck, Christoph Roodhooft, said the 27-year-old had been greatly impacted by the incident.
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"He didn't sleep all night and he was mentally a bit broken of course as well," Roodhooft told the cycling media in Australia. "He was expecting a lot of his day and he did all he could in the last two months after his bad Tour de France. He found the joy and happiness again in cycling and he was hoping to have a nice race today.
"Mathieu went to sleep at 9 o'clock and at 12 o'clock there were rumours in the corridor of the hotel," said Christoph Roodhooft. "Obviously there were children (knocking) at his door and after the third time he went out. At that moment it seemed there was children, teenagers, without parents. And obviously somebody told the police and they came and they asked him to go to the office to make an explanation and that's what happened."
While Roodhooft said he understood any non-Australian citizen had their passport confiscated for six weeks after such an incident - with criminal charges - he could get it back after the authorities are consulted.
