Mathieu van der Poel received a lot of criticism when he won the third stage in Tirreno-Adriatico in March. And all this thanks to Fabio Quartararo.
The Dutch cycling champion then celebrated his victory by crossing his arms rather ostentatiously as he crossed the finish line. “I saw that celebration in MotoGP on Instragram and the team mates thought it was fun. Hence, ”said Van der Poel afterwards.
The Alpecin-Fenix rider is a fan of motorized sports and got the mustard for his celebration from Fabio Quartataro. The French motorcycle racer won the Andalusian GP in July last year, at the Jerez circuit, and celebrated his victory in that way. He stated afterwards that it was an imitation of his fellow countryman Kylian Mbappé, star footballer at PSG.
In an interview with Eurosport for this season’s race in Jerez, Quartararo returned to Van der Poel’s “inspiring” moment. “Do I know him? Yes ”, the Frenchman laughed. “I think when I was in Qatar, for a test or the race, he won a stage. Then he posted something like thank you for the inspiration. You know, I’ve done some races but it’s not that I’m ready to inspire other athletes. So it felt really good. I now also see that more and more children are making a reference to me, which is really nice. I was so myself when I was little, so I get quite a bit of positive energy from people like that (like Van der Poel, ed.). ”
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