Following his triumph in the road race on Sunday, Mathieu van der Poel has said that he has “zero to no expectations” to take home another rainbow jersey on the mountain bike at the UCI World Championships.
The Dutchman soloed to a memorable victory at a gruelling 271km race in Glasgow to take his first world title on the road at the weekend and now turns his focus to the cross-country mountain bike event in Peebles on Saturday.
Van der Poel has won national and European titles on the mountain bike, as well as numerous events in the UCI World Cup over the years. However, he hasn’t competed in the discipline since 2021 and so isn’t putting any pressure on himself to score another big win or a medal this Worlds.
“I have zero to no expectations, to be honest, for the mountain bike race,” Van der Poel told Zwift in an interview in Glasgow. “I decided in La Plagne that I would give it a try, but in my head only the road race counted and my mind was only on the road race, to be honest.
“I will see how it goes and if it goes well it’s nice. If it doesn’t go well it’s not even a disappointment because I don’t really expect anything. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the mountain bike.
“It’s just that if everything goes well and luck is on my side, I have a chance to qualify for the Olympics and that’s the main reason why we decided to give it a go. Anyway, I was here after the road so one more week in Scotland in this weather is not a punishment.”
Van der Poel said he’s aiming to enjoy himself in the race after succeeding in “maybe the biggest target of the year” at the road race, noting that he’s “noticed how much I missed the mountain bike, just to ride some trails.”
He also reflected on his road victory last weekend, which saw him solo away from a select lead group in Glasgow to win by 1:38 from eternal rival Wout van Aert – a crash on the way to the finish notwithstanding.
Van der Poel said that he wasn’t taking any risks during his solo attack – at least not any more than he had on previous laps of the technical and hilly city centre circuit. But still, he went down on a wet corner, damaging a shoe, before remounting and racing on to glory.
“For me, it was also a super strange moment because all of a sudden, I was on the ground in the barriers,” he said. “I knew it was not necessary to take any risks so I was not doing something else that I did the laps before. And still both wheels just started…
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