While his rivals have had a good start to the 2022 road season, Mathieu Van Der Pol (Alpecin Phoenix) has been chasing and training hard this month to recover from a back injury, raising the possibility of a start at the Tour of Flanders.

Organizers of the Tour of Flanders and Dwars door Hlaanderen (Flanders Classic) announced Thursday that Van der Pol will compete in those events, and there are rumors that he will start at the Coppi e Bartali later this month, but Alpecin Phoenix refused to confirm race dates when contacted by Cycling News.

The Coppi et Bartali will run from March 22-26, while the Doire de Flenderen will take place on March 30, the Wednesday before Sunday's Tour of Flanders.

Van der Pol is currently training near Denia, Spain; the 27-year-old, who was off the bike for more than a month after back pain flared up in his second cyclocross race in December, is a 2020 Tour de Flanders winner and is taking a very cautious rehabilitation approach to his rehab.

After battling pain since last May, van der Pol was finally diagnosed with a swollen disc; after taking the entire month of January off, van der Pol underwent minor knee surgery to remove scar tissue. The team and his father, Adrie van der Pol, insisted that he would not resume training until his back pain was gone.

That day came in early February, when van der Poel first rode on the home trainer and then hit the road for a short ride. He headed to Spain to build up his endurance and logged a huge number of kilometers in February.

In recent weeks, Van der Pol has been even more intense, with his latest ride on Strava on Thursday being titled "40-20 ? ", a 133.7-km route that included more than 2,000 meters of climbing, and Van der Poel set numerous personal best times, including the fastest time of 2:30 minutes at 466 watts on the "Camí de Fanadix."

Van der Poel suffered an untimely retirement last year, losing second place to Caspar Asgreen in the Tour de Flanders in the first half of 2021 and then competing in the mountain bike World Cup in hopes of making the Olympics. Two weeks later, he was back on the road for the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France, where he wore the maillot jaune for six days before leaving for Tokyo.

After a spectacular crash on a rocky drop-off on the first lap of the cross country, Van der Pol was forced to stop his training camp due to back pain; he missed the MTB World Championships and the Benelux Tour, but finished third in Paris-Roubaix. Two days after the start of the cross season, his back problems flared up.

Meanwhile, longtime rival Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma) has hardly put a foot wrong. On Thursday in Paris-Nice, a day after winning the stage 4 time trial, he pulled away from the peloton in an aggressive mountain stage and ceded the lead to teammate Primosz Roglic. Tadej Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) was also among the favorites to win Flanders with a stunning victory in Strade Bianche.

Alpecin Phoenix will announce Van der Poel's schedule as soon as it is finalized. However, as van der Poel wrote on Instagram last month, "Patience is key. This may apply to race organizers and fans alike.