Biography

Adrianus Aloysius Jacobus (Adrie) van der Poel was born in Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands, just north off the border with Flanders, Belgium. He is a former professional cyclist active from 1981 to 2000. He started off as a road race cyclist but focused on cyclo-cross (off-road) in the autumn of his career. He became UCI Cyclo-cross World Champion, in 1996. In road cycling, Van der Poel won major road races throughout the eighties such as Paris-Tours, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Tour of Flanders. In 1990, Van der Poel won the Amstel Gold Race, the most famous race in his home country which then finished in Meerssen, the Netherlands.

Adrie van der Poel is patriarch of a cycling family. He is the father of 2023 UCI Road World Road Champion Mathieu van der Poel. He also has a lesser known son David (who is three years older than Mathieu) who is a cyclo-cross rider just like his brother. His younger brother Jacques van der Poel (born 1963) used to be a professional cyclist from 1986 to 1992 and his teammate for a few seasons. Jacques did not win that many races. Adrie is the son-in-law of French cycling icon Raymond Poulidor (1936-2019). He married Raymond Poulidor's youngest daughter Corinne somewhere in the 1980s. After his career, the international cycling union UCI employed him as he became a race course builder specifically for cyclo-cross races. Adrie developed many race courses for the UCI World Cyclo-cross Championships. He also became a tutor to his sons.
- IMDb mini biography by: Cnuddearthur