Mathieu van der Poel: Dutch Tour de France cyclist attacks young girls in a Sydney hotel
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A video has surfaced showing top Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel losing control and lashing out at two young sisters over a ‘knock and run’ joke at a Sydney hotel.
The images, taken by a 12-year-old girl, show her 14-year-old sister in the hallway of the Novotel Brighton Le Sands at 10:40 pm last Saturday.
Moments later, she is seen running into her hotel room screaming and terrified with an angry Van der Poel in pursuit after being pushed over the edge by repeatedly knocking on his hotel room door.
The footage shows the teen cringing with her hands in front of her face before the athlete corners her and pulls her by the arms until she falls and scrapes her elbow.
Van der Poel, 27, leaves the girl bleeding on the floor to chase another 13-year-old girl he pushed against a hotel wall.
The girl’s father, Emad, showed the video exclusively to Daily Mail Australia and provided a photo of his daughter’s injury, which showed layers of skin rubbed off in a nasty burn on the carpet.
A 14-year-old girl (pictured) is seen in the hallway of the Novotel Brighton Le Sands last Saturday night at 10:40 PM just before being chased by angry Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel who was sleeping in the room opposite them.
The girl cringed with her hands in front of her face until he cornered her (pictured), pulling her by the arms until she fell over and severely grazed her elbow.
Mathieu van der Poel (pictured), who won a stage in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia, was fed up with the girls playing a ‘knock and run’ joke on the door of his hotel room
Emad said the angry cyclist also “screamed at my youngest, the 12-year-old, and said ‘did you do this too’ and she panicked. They are very shocked.
“But they did get into trouble. They’re in trouble,” he said of the “knock and run” prank the girls had pulled before an enraged Van der Poel lunged at them.
“He has every right to be angry, but not to do what he did.
“They’re little girls and he’s huge.”
Emad described the “nice weekend in town” his wife, her boyfriend and the women’s four daughters enjoyed at the beach hotel before Van der Poel’s extraordinary attacks resulted in his arrest, his withdrawal from a championship race and then fleeing Australia.
“My wife is angry that he fled the country as much as what he did,” Emad said.
The weekend started on Saturday when the two adult women and the two sets of girls, all between the ages of 12 and 14, arrived at the Novotel to spend the evening in two rooms on the ninth floor.
Unbeknownst to the girls, in room 920, they were almost directly across the street from cyclist Van der Poel and his girlfriend, Roxanne Bertels in room 930.
The cyclists who competed in the final event of the UCI Road World Championships on Sunday were accommodated in hotels in Sydney due to room shortages.
After dinner, the two mothers went to their shared hotel room, while the four young girls next door began to play.
Van der Poel’s friend Roxanne Bertels (pictured together) had asked the girls to stop before the cyclist waited for the final knock and then stormed out of his room and chased two of the girls into their shared room.
The young girls (pictured) involved in the terrifying incident in Sydney last Saturday
The girls’ father, Emad, (pictured) said his daughters had been “a little naughty” and that the cyclist “had every right to be angry, but not to do what he did”
“Look, I was doing things when I was their age, but the youngest had Covid just a few weeks ago and this was their time out,” Emad said.
“They were excited … but then they were a little naughty.”
Police records show that Roxanne Bertels ordered the girls to stop their game after knocking on the door several times, but that Van der Poel waited for the final knock, then stormed out of his room, chasing two of the girls into their shared room.
The cyclist, who has won a stage in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia, pleads guilty to magistrate Hugh Donnelly in Sutherland’s local court on Monday.
He was ordered to pay $1,500 in fines on two charges of habitual assault.
The cyclist had previously withdrawn from the 266.9km championship race for an hour after being released from police custody at 4am on the morning of the event.
Emad said the younger sister of the 13-year-old who pushed the Dutchman against the wall filmed the attacks on her phone.
The girls’ father, Emad, showed the video of the incident exclusively to Daily Mail Australia and provided a photo of his daughter’s injury, with layers of skin rubbed off in a nasty burn on the carpet (pictured)
He later said he said to his daughters ‘you’re lucky he’s famous’, which may have stopped Van der Poel from continuing.
Emad, who works as a tradie in western Sydney, said he didn’t learn of the attacks until Sunday morning, when the two mothers took their daughters to a doctor “just in case” the attacks turned out to be more serious.
Emad said it was just before the start of the race and when he heard that Van der Poel had resigned after the start that he was “pitying him, but I wouldn’t have done what he did”.
“I can imagine my daughter knocking on the door, but I could tell from the way she ran that she was very scared,” he said.
Emad said that despite Van der Poel’s violent overreaction, his two girls know they did the wrong thing and that they “will not see the other two girls for a while.”
“The eldest is a daredevil, but that shocked her,” he said.
Emad said his daughters were normal girls who “were good in school, although they can always do better” and who loved netball, crafts “and cycling, would you believe it.”