Mathieu van der Poel, a cyclist from the Netherlands, has admitted to assaulting two teenage girls who reportedly knocked on his door over the weekend as a prank.
On September 24, the 27-year-old admitted to assaulting two 13- and 14-year-old girls at the Grand Parade hotel in Brighton-Le-Sands, Sydney.
According to a statement released by the police, van der Poel allegedly got into a verbal fight with the girls when they knocked on his door around 10:30 p.m. He then allegedly pushed both of the girls, causing one to fall to the ground and the other to get a small cut on her elbow from scraping against a wall.
Lodging the board was told of the occurrence and called police, who captured van der Poel.
Even though he was widely considered to be the favorite to win, van der Poel sensationally withdrew from a World Championship road race in Wollongong just one hour into the race following the incident.
Van der Poel made the decision to plead guilty on Monday in Sutherland Local Court before Magistrate Hugh Donnelly, despite the fact that he was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
He was given a $1,500 fine payment order.
The cyclist now faces a three-year ban on reentering Australia because of his criminal conviction.
The Department of Home Affairs states that anyone convicted of violating a Commonwealth law, a state or territory law, or a law considered to pose a threat to the health, safety, or order of the Australian community faces up to three years of exclusion.
According to van der Poel’s statement to the Belgian website Sporza, “I went to bed early and many children in the hallway of my room found it necessary to continually knock on the door.”
“I was done with it after a few times.I didn’t ask so politely for a break.I was then taken away after the police were called.
I didn’t get back to my room until 4 p.m. That is undoubtedly not ideal. It’s a disaster, but I can no longer change anything.
Van der Poel’s mental state was said by Team Alpecin-Deceuninck boss Christoph Roodhooft to reporters after the incident.
Roodhooft stated to reporters, “He didn’t sleep all night and was mentally a bit broken as well.”
“He did everything he could in the last two months after his poor Tour de France, and he was expecting a lot of this day (race).He hoped to have a pleasant race today because cycling had brought him joy and happiness once more.
Leave a Reply