Mathieu van der Poel is eager to achieve the one feat missing from his already impressive career records: a world championship in mountain biking.
The 29-year-old athlete has won six world cyclo-cross titles and wears rainbow jerseys on gravel and roads. Furthermore, he also won three Tour of Flanders crowns, two at Paris-Roubaix, one at Milano-Sanremo, and a one stage victory at the Tour de France.
However, he is driven to win an elusive MTB world championship this new year. He also nurses high expectations for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Van der Poel told Sporza: “If I could choose, I would like to become world champion mountain biker this year. I haven’t succeeded yet and it keeps playing in the back of my mind.”
As for the Olympics, he remarked: “I have one more chance for that: LA will almost certainly be the last [Olympic] Games I participate in. It would be great to try to finish in LA on the mountain bike.”
Van der Poel on Tour de France: “There’s not much to gain”
Speaking about the Tour de France, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider emphasized that he is not particularly motivated by the largest Grand Tour.
He stated: “Apart from trying to win stages and wear the yellow jersey, there’s not much to gain for me in the Tour… I’d rather ride five races in which I’m competing to win than 20 stages in which I’m not competing for the win half the time.”
He will also try to win the Tour of Flanders for the fourth time this year, even if the task will be considerably more difficult with the expected return of 2023 winner Tadej Pogacar.
“It will be difficult to beat him, but it is a challenge that I am happy to accept… We are thinking about how we can close the gap on Pogacar because that will be necessary to beat him in the Tour.”
“Perhaps that can be done by slightly different and more difficult training. That is why I am skipping the World Cup CX in Benidorm, for example, because a training camp in that same period will make me better towards the spring,” he added.
Source: Eurosport