{"id":249666,"date":"2025-10-30T08:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T08:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249666\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T08:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T08:12:10","slug":"greg-van-avermaet-has-an-unexpected-star-encounter-during-his-run-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249666\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg Van Avermaet has an unexpected star-encounter during his run in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg Van Avermaet<\/a> isn’t competing on road since 2023, but the 2016 Olympic champion remains in a top shape, as is evident from his latest Strava activity. However the effort alone would not be all that interesting, if during the run, he didn’t run across a familiar face – Mathieu van der Poel<\/a>. Unlike the Belgian, Van der Poel is a bit further back in his preparation and thus didn’t tag along for too long, but Van Avermaet was still able to get a nice selfie while passing the Dutchman.<\/p>\n

Although he’s been out of racing for a few years now, the 39-year-old Belgian remains exceptionally active. In J\u00e1vea, Spain, a popular winter destination for cyclists, he completed a 13-kilometer morning run, averaging 4:36 per kilometer. He shared the activity on Strava with the telling title: “Putting distance into Mathieu”. Van Avermaet clearly still has the legs, having become an avid gravel biker.<\/p>\n

For Van der Poel, it’s likely been a little less intense run, although we cannot deduce much as the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider doesn’t make his activities on Strava public. The Dutchman is still in a quiet rebuilding phase and is currently concentrating mainly on regaining his rhythm and basic fitness, without pushing himself too hard.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Van der Poel, however, chimed in under Van Avermaet’s Strava post with a typical quip. With a wink, he thanked the Belgian for “waiting for him a bit.” It remains to be seen when we’ll see the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider back in competition. At some point, the seven-time cyclocross world champion is expected to join his specialist colleagues in the field, but no set date has been presented at this moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greg Van Avermaet isn’t competing on road since 2023, but the 2016 Olympic champion remains in a top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-249666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}