Mathieu van der Poel to skip Olympic MTB to focus on Tour de France and road race

Mathieu van der Poel is to skip the Olympic mountain bike cross-country event, instead focusing on the Tour de France and the road race at the games, his team announced on Wednesday.

The road world champion, a former European champion in MTB cross-country, was expected to be targeting the event in Paris this summer, but will instead ride the road race.

The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider won the cyclo-cross World Championships for a sixth time at the beginning of 2024, before going on to win both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. He has not raced since Liège-Bastogne-Liège last month, and will spend all of May and most of June away from racing. His next road race will be stage one of the Tour, on 29th June in Florence.

In a press release on Wednesday, Van der Poel said the combination of MTB, along with the Tour and the road race were a "difficult puzzle to put together".

"Let's say I chose the most logical thing," he said. "My first half of the season was quite long. First the cyclocross season. After a short break, I resumed training in function of the spring season and I continued that campaign up to Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Now, if I want to focus fully on mountain biking and be perfectly prepared, I have to start as early as next weekend in Nove Mesto, the Czech manche of the MTB World Cup.

"So, in consultation with the team, I opted for a slightly longer rest period, after which I can build up to the Tour de France and the Olympic road race without time pressure. And the mountain biking? Who knows what's still possible in 2028 in Los Angeles? That's still a long time away, but I'll be in a different phase of my career then. Maybe then I can put everything on that mountain biking. This year the combination is just too difficult.

"The fact that I am currently riding in the rainbow jersey has indirectly played a bit of a role," he continued. "It's a special year. As world champion I like to ride in that jersey as much as possible. So I also prefer not to miss the Tour de France. And that proved to be a good preparation."

Van der Poel is continuing training in Spain, and will continue at altitude longer than the rest of Alpecin's squad. His aims for the Tour are to help his teammate Jasper Philipsen to stage wins and a second green jersey, while also targeting a stage win - his second - himself.