'With Mathieu you ride to win': Dutch team eye glory at Montréal Worlds

The Dutch team for the upcoming World Championships in Montréal, Canada, will be spearheaded by Mathieu van der Poel, as the rest of the provisional line-up has been revealed.

The Dutch national coach Koos Moerenhout outlined the line-up, explaining the team's ambitions and why certain riders were selected and why others weren't avaliable.

Thymen Arensman will not ride the Worlds. He rode both the Giro and the Tour this year and was unavailable because his team have prioritised the Italian one-day races that follow the Worlds.

"Thymen is certainly a rider I would like to have at a race like this. But after the Giro and the Tour, Thymen and his team made a different choice," Koos Moerenhout told NOS. "I definitely have an opinion about that, yes. But it says something about how cycling has evolved. For me the Worlds are the highest. You do not have to convince me of that. But there are also team interests. So in recent years it is not only about whether you want to come, but whether you can, whether it fits within your programme."

Dylan van Baarle, second at the 2021 Worlds, has judged the Montréal circuit too hard for him to matter. Wout Poels has been earmarked for a leading role at the European Championships in Slovenia the following week. Dutch champion Huub Artz has broken a bone in his hand.

Van der Poel leads the squad, supported by Daan Hoole, Bart Lemmen, Tim van Dijke, Pascal Eenkhoorn, Menno Huising, Mathijs Paasschens and Bauke Mollema. Hoole rides the time trial alone, despite the Netherlands holding two places for it.

"You have to be ambitious in the time trial too, and then you have to be thinking about the top ten. With Daan that is realistic," Moerenhout said.

Mollema said last year that Rwanda would be his last Worlds, then changed his mind, and now starts his thirteenth in his final season as a professional. He has three top-ten finishes at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, run on the same circuit.

"He kept that story up for a long time, until he fancied it again," Moerenhout said. "Bauke is simply super professional and does a good preparation. You can assume he will be good."

The lap is built on short, sharp climbs, with the final 500 metres rising at around four percent after a tight corner.

"It will be a bit on the edge. But he should definitely be able to handle it. It is a little comparable to Zürich, and he took a medal there as well. There are absolutely opportunities," Moerenhout said.

Van der Poel won the title in Glasgow in 2023 with a solo of more than twenty kilometres, ending a 38-year wait for a Dutch men's world champion since Joop Zoetemelk in 1985. The Dutchman will line up at the Skoda Tour de Luxembourg, just as he did in 2024, as preparation for the road race. 

Pogačar's crash at the Vuelta is likely to keep the two-time defending champion out of Canada.

"If he is there, his preparation has obviously been badly disrupted. But there are plenty of other contenders. The Belgian team of course, with Remco Evenepoel at the front," Moerenhout said.

"I think it is a bit more open now. You try to set the selection up for that, with a few more controlling riders, but also riders who can read the race and follow it into the finale."

"With Mathieu as leader you simply ride there to win."