{"id":420278,"date":"2026-01-18T01:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T01:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420278\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T01:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T01:59:14","slug":"im-better-off-just-surviving-that-little-climb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/420278\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m better off just surviving that little climb"},"content":{"rendered":"

He has revealed what his schedule will be looking like: \u201cThe Opening Weekend, Tirreno [Adriatico], [Milano] Sanremo, possibly some Flemish races and then I work towards the Giro. There I will go as a leader and that\u2019s how Zak Dempster sees me too, as a sprinter with a team around me,” van Poppel told IDLProCycling<\/a>. “I\u2019m really looking forward to it: we\u2019re just going for it and then we\u2019ll see. Maybe it hits once or multiple times, maybe not at all. You never know.\u201dOver the past few years, van Poppel has ridden a lot as leadout man for Jordi Meeus<\/a>, but the results over the past two seasons simply have not landed, whilst the Dutchman himself often began to show up as a stronger option. Climbing wise and in the one-day races, van Poppel has taken on his best-ever level, whilst at the Dutch national championships he used his sprinting power to beat Olav Kooij and Dylan Groenewegen<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He believes that he has an ideal mix of both specialties at the time being, and does not intend on to change it. \u201cThat is indeed my strength, to be able to drop someone like Merlier or Kooij. I\u2019ve been thinking about fully focusing on sprinting, but I think I\u2019m better off just surviving that little climb. That\u2019s what we\u2019ll have to rely on anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dutch champion tour<\/p>\n

After racing the Tour de France and being a stage winner at the returning Tour of Holland, the 32-year old has already acomplished a lot in his Dutch national champion’s jersey. This provides him further motivation to perform: \u201cI already have the most beautiful victory. In the Tour of Holland, with number 1 in that champion\u2019s jersey. That was great for me and I still can\u2019t believe I did that. I had ruled out winning, and now I won that race at home in the red-white-blue in a beautiful way. It couldn\u2019t be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI also want to enjoy that champion\u2019s jersey and, for example, show it in the Amstel Gold Race. It\u2019s like I\u2019m world champion. That may sound strange, but I just never expected it anymore. I hadn\u2019t competed for five years because I was done with it. And then I race again and beat Kooij and Groenewegen, simple as that. Amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"van<\/p>\n

Danny van Poppel will take the Dutch national champion’s jersey back to the Netherlands\u00a0<\/p>\n

This next week he is taking part in the Tour Down Under<\/a>, where he will be a key part of the team block and chase stage wins in the sprints, with Matthew Brennan and Sam Welsford as his main rivals. \u201cIt\u2019s starting again, eh. I finished very late and now I\u2019m back into it nicely. I\u2019m not really in shape yet, but that can come quickly. Originally Jordi Meeus was supposed to go, but there are some finishes with just a small climb. And I can nicely get used to the train,” he says.<\/p>\n

Although he wasn’t initially set to race it, the long trip to the Australian summer, away from Europe’s current cold weather, proved to be an attractive proposition. \u201cIt\u2019s also a kind of training camp. You\u2019re in the heat, get good massages, good food: many forget that. Many guys now feel that they have to be at altitude to be able to race in the spring. I don\u2019t see it like that at all: it\u2019s actually a good block and a beautiful trip. I\u2019m not so into training camps, so Down Under is a nice option,” he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has revealed what his schedule will be looking like: \u201cThe Opening Weekend, Tirreno [Adriatico], [Milano] Sanremo, possibly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,220980,163619,39733,85,198973],"class_list":["post-420278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-danny-van-poppel","tag-giro-ditalia","tag-red-bull-bora-hansgrohe","tag-sports","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}