Mathieu van der Poel remounts his mountain motorbike Sunday to experience the Olympic check tournament at Elancourt hill in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the web page for mountain motorbike competitions on the Paris Olympic Video games subsequent yr.
Different elite athletes anticipated to take part come with multidisciplinary Global Champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, four-time French MTB champion Loana Lecomte, reigning girls’s XCO Eu champion Puck Pieterse, Rio Olympics gold medalist and 10-time Global Champion Nino Schurter and Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Tom Pidcock.
Simply two UCI-sanctioned races shall be held Sunday, one for ladies at 1:00 p.m. native time and one for males at 3:00 p.m. native time, on a 4.4km direction. A complete of 39 girls and 43 males are a part of the beginning lists.
Paris 2024 organisers introduced the check occasions now not only for competitions, however for comments from athletes. Gerben de Knegt, the Dutch mountain motorbike nationwide trainer, stated the workforce had particular pastime within the technical facets of the direction and the way it matched talents for key athletes, like Van der Poel.
“The [athletes] would really like so that you can make an estimate prematurely of the gravity of the climbs and enjoy for themselves how technically positive passages are. That is how you’ll get an concept of the way the direction suits your abilities and if you wish to upload positive abilities within the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics. We’re satisfied that we will – moderately with reference to house – for a weekend to peer how the path is,” De Knegt mentioned at the KNWU Instagram feed.
Van der Poel is without doubt one of the workforce’s headliners and in a quest to constitute the Netherlands in cross-country mountain cycling on the Paris Olympic Video games in 2024. The newly-crowned avenue race Global Champion comes into the check tournament from a avenue victory at SUPER 8 Classics every week in the past. HIs ultimate look on a mountain motorbike was once within the cross-country race on the Global Championships in Scotland, the place he crashed out at the first lap.
It was once a equivalent state of affairs for Van der Poel on the Tokyo Olympic Video games the place he crashed out of the XCO race at the opening lap. It was once his most effective likelihood for a medal, as he had pulled out of the elite males’s avenue race. Van der Poel may just strive the road-MTB double-header in Paris, because the elite males’s avenue race is scheduled for August 3, 5 days following the cross-country mountain motorbike contest.
“We should not have two Van der Poel-types. It continues to be observed what alternatives he makes,” Koos Moerenhout, some other Dutch nationwide workforce trainer at the floor in France, advised Wielerflits.
“He is additionally now not going to do each disciplines if he does not believe in both of them. Within the coming duration, we can have conversations to peer the place his priorities lie. Mathieu at all times will get an additional celebrity on account of his completing high quality. However then the entirety needs to be proper.”
Self assurance with the mountain motorbike direction shall be extra vital than the outcome this Sunday.
“We can know what that direction looks as if and what plans we will make for it after this weekend. I’ve attempted to assemble details about that direction in a wide variety of the way, however it is extremely restricted,” De Knegt advised the Dutch information outlet.
“It may be a mountaineering direction with two lengthy climbs, or an period direction with a number of quick climbs. It can be that Mathieu thinks very otherwise about his mountain motorbike ambitions in Paris after Sunday. However I want to talk about his preparation.”
A part of the state of affairs is that the Paris Olympic Video games come at the heels of the Excursion de France, the place Van der Poel plans to race for his Alpecin-Deceuninck workforce. The Excursion was once moved to every week previous than standard, between June 29-July 21, with the Paris Olympic Video games starting on July 26.
“Should you do the entire Excursion, that still approach you do not contact the mountain motorbike for 3 weeks and also you most effective have 8 days to hone the sensation on that motorbike once more. All of it hinges on what Mathieu himself desires. That are supposed to be transparent quickly,” De Knegt added.
“It additionally is dependent upon the direction. An period direction leans a lot nearer to the line. To be truthful: the line race in Paris, Mathieu likes that very a lot. However the aggregate is a problem.”
Sunday’s check tournament takes position on an open slot at the UCI Mountain Motorcycle Global Cup calendar, happening comfortably following occasions in Les Will get, France and sooner than the general two competitions in North The us – 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 once reworked 4 a long time in the past from long-closed sandstone quarries. The hill itself reaches a top of 231 metres, the perfect level within the Paris area and gives perspectives of the Eiffel Tower from the summit. Nearly all of motorbike paths on this location, as much as 95%, shall be used for mountain motorbike competitions subsequent summer time, designed by way of South African knowledgeable Nick Floros, in keeping with Paris 2024 organisers.
Van der Poel remains to be searching for an elusive Olympic Video games medal, and he could have an opportunity at two. The routes for the line races on the Paris Video games have been unveiled in early July this yr, with the boys going through the longest direction within the historical past of the Video games, 273km. Full of 13 punchy climbs, the elevation achieve provides as much as 2,800 metres and fits the manner of a rider like Van der Poel. After the announcement the Global Champion stated “this is usually a Vintage in Flanders”.
Now the climbs and turns of the mountain motorbike direction desire a nearer inspection. It’s nonetheless 11 months away till the actual check, however checks and arrangements start Sunday.