Mathieu van der Pol admitted that he made a mistake in trying to solve an incident at the World Championships team hotel, was arrested, pleaded guilty to assault, and was fined A$1,500.

Van der Pol gave his first media interview since returning from Australia, where his participation in the UCI Road World Championships Elite Men's Road Race was overshadowed by an altercation with two teenage girls who had played a game of "knock and run" at his hotel room door the night before. He responded.

In a report published Tuesday on nieuwsblad.be, Van der Pol admitted that he "should have done things differently" and admitted to grabbing the arm of one of the teenage girls.

He said, however, that he "never intended to hurt anyone."

"Of course, I was wrong too. 'I'll be honest about that,' he admitted. I shouldn't have done that. I should have done it differently. Unfortunately, that's what happened, but I'm trying to put that behind me and look ahead to what's to come."

But he also insisted, "Anyone who knows me knows that I have never hurt anyone. There are a lot of stories going around about me pushing them down and things like that, but that is absolutely not true, and that has never happened."

He also claimed that "I have never hurt anyone.

Van der Pol flew to Europe via Brussels' Zaventem Airport, where he spoke about the entire incident for the first time.

The incident resulted in Van der Pol being sentenced to assault and a fine.

Nevertheless, Van der Paul admits that he handled the incident badly, admitting that the video of the incident posted on his website "shows what I said."

"I should have informed someone anyway, the front desk or something. It was late at night and I wanted to sleep. 'I tried to fix it myself, but that was completely wrong. Unfortunately, I can't change it now."

Van der Pol said that his next step is to go back to his home country and that he is happy to return to Europe no matter what. But he did not rule out the possibility of racing more before the end of the 2023 season.

"We'll see how that goes a little bit more," he concluded.

"I trained very hard for the World Championships and I felt good. So I'd like to do something, but I guess it depends on my recovery from now on."