Van der Poel took a lower trajectory than his rivals over the key jump, one of the more spectacular portions of a technical course put on by organisers for the Olympics.
He dug in his front wheel ahead of a landing section of rocks and went down hard over his handlebars, ending up in the bottom of the descent - thankfully out of the way of following riders - as he clutched at his back and hip.
He picked himself up and continued with the race from the rear of the pack, a minute down on the front riders. He had to pass a lot of dropped riders, which saw him continue to lose time to the front of the race, hauling his way up to 14th before pulling out of the competition, hobbling off the bike into the pits.
During Van der Poel’s reconnaissance of the course, a descending wooden plank had been in place at 'Sakura Drop'. Writing on Twitter, Van der Poel said he was unaware that the plank would be removed for the race itself.
Both Dutch national coach Gerben de Knegt and Van der Poel’s teammate Milan Vader, who placed 10th, could not explain how the pre-race favourite had not realised the plank would be removed after discussions about it within the team.
“It may be hard to say, but we talked about that during lunch today,” Vader told Dutch broadcaster NOS.
“Mathieu said: ‘Gosh everyone jumps there.’ I asked: ‘Won't you, then?’ He said, ‘No, I'll roll off that plank,’ Then I said that they had removed that board at the test event in 2019 for the competition.”
"Then I said that they had removed that board at the test event in 2019 for the competition.”
Van der Poel confirmed on Twitter that he was under the impression the plank would be in place during the race.
“I was not aware of it – that plank was there during the reconnaissance. I only heard that it had been removed at the test event,” wrote Van der Poel.
Other competitors said after the race that it was made clear by officials during both the final practice day and the race day briefing that the descending ramp had been removed for the race.
Van der Poel went to hospital for scans after the race, which revealed no broken bones for the star cyclocross, mountain-bike, road cycling crossover.
