Fast start the key to Van der Poel's MTB Worlds dream

Mathieu van der Poel will chase a rainbow jersey in a fourth different discipline this weekend when he lines up in the cross-country event at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Crans-Montana on Sunday.

The Dutchman is the reigning cyclo-cross and gravel world champion, while he won the road Worlds in Glasgow in 2023. If he adds an elusive mountain bike gold medal, he will emulate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who has a full set of road, gravel, cyclocross and mountain bike rainbow jerseys. (For good measure, the Frenchwoman also has a marathon mountain bike world title on her palmarès).

Van der Poel’s mountain bike participation has been sporadic in the years since he crashed out of the Tokyo Olympics, and he opted against racing in the discipline at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

At the start of 2025, however, Van der Poel signalled that the Mountain Bike Worlds would be a target this season, although he has raced just twice on the circuit all year. He crashed out of the Nove Mesto World Cup in May, but he enjoyed a more successful outing at the Les Gets World Cup two weeks ago. 

Van der Poel, who has opted against riding the Road Worlds in Rwanda, recovered from pneumonia after the Tour de France and then lit up with Renewi Tour with his aggressive riding. The race doubled as a warm-up for his foray back into mountain biking at Les Gets.

Although he started at the back of the grid in France, Van der Poel worked his way through the field and he finished the day in sixth, his best mountain bike display since 2021. He will set out from a similar position on Sunday, in the fifth row, and so a rapid start will be essential to his rainbow bid in Switzerland.

“The start is on asphalt and is quite long. It’s wide at the beginning, but then there’s a sharp turn, and you have to be in the right side of the pack,” Dutch coach Gerben De Knegt told Sporza. “But you have to get there first, and that didn’t work out in Les Gets. Mathieu just lost places there.”

In Les Gets two weeks ago, Van der Poel recouped considerable ground whenever the trail climbed, but he struggled to keep pace with the full-time specialists on the more technical descents. He will hope that the work-out in France will leave him sharper for the Worlds.

“He learns quickly, but it takes a lot of concentration,” Alpecin-Deceuninck directeur sportif Christoph Roodhooft told BiciPro. “The best mountain bikers are technically very strong, but you can compensate against that with an optimal physical condition. And it’s not like Mathieu isn’t himself very capable technically.”

Van der Poel arrived at Crans-Montana almost a week before his race in order to test the course and to acclimatise to the conditions at 1,500m above sea level.

“It’s a bit higher there than Les Gets, so I need some time to adjust,” Van der Poel said before arriving in Switzerland. “Once I’m there, I can get some recon runs in. That’s the main goal.” 

Olympic champion Tom Pidcock, currently vying for a podium spot at the Vuelta a España, will not be in action in Crans-Montana, though reigning world champion Alan Hatherly (South Africa) will be on hand. 

Van der Poel will also have to get the better of Christopher Blevins (United States), Luca Martin (France) and Mathias Flückiger (Switzerland), while home favourite Nino Schurter is riding his final Worlds before retirement.

“Getting into the top 10 as quickly as possible could be the bottleneck,” De Knegt said. “That’s why that start is and will remain so important.”