Mathieu van der Poel remounts his mountain bike Sunday to journey the Olympic take a look at occasion at Elancourt hill in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the location for mountain bike competitions on the Paris Olympic Video games subsequent 12 months.
Different elite athletes anticipated to take part embody multidisciplinary World Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, four-time French MTB champion Loana Lecomte, reigning girls’s XCO European champion Puck Pieterse, Rio Olympics gold medalist and 10-time World Champion Nino Schurter and Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Tom Pidcock.
Simply two UCI-sanctioned races will likely be held Sunday, one for girls at 1:00 p.m. native time and one for males at 3:00 p.m. native time, on a 4.4km course. A complete of 39 girls and 43 males are a part of the beginning lists.
Paris 2024 organisers supplied the take a look at occasions not only for competitions, however for suggestions from athletes. Gerben de Knegt, the Dutch mountain bike nationwide coach, mentioned the workforce had particular curiosity within the technical points of the course and the way it matched talents for key athletes, like Van der Poel.
“The [athletes] would love to have the ability to make an estimate upfront of the gravity of the climbs and expertise for themselves how technically sure passages are. That is how one can get an concept of how the course matches your expertise and if you wish to add sure expertise within the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics. We’re pleased that we are able to – comparatively near dwelling – for a weekend to see how the route is,” De Knegt said on the KNWU Instagram feed.
Van der Poel is among the workforce’s headliners and in a quest to characterize the Netherlands in cross-country mountain biking on the Paris Olympic Video games in 2024. The newly-crowned highway race World Champion comes into the take a look at occasion from a highway victory at SUPER 8 Classics every week in the past. HIs final look on a mountain bike was within the cross-country race on the World Championships in Scotland, the place he crashed out on the primary lap.
It was an identical situation for Van der Poel on the Tokyo Olympic Video games the place he crashed out of the XCO race on the opening lap. It was his solely likelihood for a medal, as he had pulled out of the elite males’s highway race. Van der Poel might try the road-MTB double-header in Paris, because the elite males’s highway race is scheduled for August 3, 5 days following the cross-country mountain bike contest.
“We do not have two Van der Poel-types. It stays to be seen what selections he makes,” Koos Moerenhout, one other Dutch nationwide workforce coach on the bottom in France, instructed Wielerflits.
“He is additionally not going to do each disciplines if he would not believe in both of them. Within the coming interval, we can have conversations to see the place his priorities lie. Mathieu at all times will get an additional star due to his ending high quality. However then every thing must be proper.”
Confidence with the mountain bike course will likely be extra essential than the consequence this Sunday.
“We’ll know what that course appears like and what plans we are able to make for it after this weekend. I’ve tried to gather details about that course in all types of how, however it is extremely restricted,” De Knegt instructed the Dutch information outlet.
“It may be a climbing course with two lengthy climbs, or an interval course with a number of brief climbs. It might be that Mathieu thinks very in a different way about his mountain bike ambitions in Paris after Sunday. However I want to talk about his preparation.”
A part of the situation is that the Paris Olympic Video games come on the heels of the Tour de France, the place Van der Poel plans to race for his Alpecin-Deceuninck workforce. The Tour was moved to every week sooner than common, between June 29-July 21, with the Paris Olympic Video games starting on July 26.
“In the event you do the entire Tour, that additionally means you do not contact the mountain bike for 3 weeks and also you solely have eight days to hone the sensation on that bike once more. All of it hinges on what Mathieu himself desires. That ought to be clear quickly,” De Knegt added.
“It additionally is determined by the course. An interval course leans a lot nearer to the highway. To be honest: the highway race in Paris, Mathieu likes that very a lot. However the mixture is a problem.”
Sunday’s take a look at occasion takes place on an open slot on the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup calendar, happening conveniently following occasions in Les Will get, France and earlier than the ultimate two competitions in North America – Snowshoe, West Virginia from September 29-October 1 and Mont-Sainte-Anne, Québec from October 6-8.
Elancourt hill is a public park that was remodeled 4 a long time in the past from long-closed sandstone quarries. The hill itself reaches a peak of 231 metres, the very best level within the Paris area and gives views of the Eiffel Tower from the summit. Nearly all of bike paths on this location, as much as 95%, will likely be used for mountain bike competitions subsequent summer time, designed by South African knowledgeable Nick Floros, in accordance with Paris 2024 organisers.
Van der Poel continues to be in search of an elusive Olympic Video games medal, and he could have an opportunity at two. The routes for the highway races on the Paris Video games had been unveiled in early July this 12 months, with the lads going through the longest course within the historical past of the Video games, 273km. Filled with 13 punchy climbs, the elevation acquire provides as much as 2,800 metres and fits the model of a rider like Van der Poel. After the announcement the World Champion mentioned “this may very well be a Basic in Flanders”.
Now the climbs and turns of the mountain bike course want a better inspection. It’s nonetheless 11 months away till the true take a look at, however assessments and preparations start Sunday.