When Mathieu van der Poel shows up at a race, it’s always an occasion. So the Dutch star’s return to mountain bike World Cup racing for the first time in a year attracted a fair bit of hype. The Alpecin-Premier Tech racer delivered on the hype, or at least the spectacle.
Van der Poel raced from the back row, quickly moving up through the group. A crash in the rock garden late in the short, 20-minute race held the Tour de France stage-winner back from a true result, leaving him in 10th at the finish line.
“It was really painful. I expected it to be painful but it hurt more than I wanted it to,” a muddy van der Poel told camera’s at the finish line.
A muddy course and well-rested field, who enjoyed a month off from World Cup racing while the Dutchman was busy riding around France in a heat wave, made for little rest and full-gas racing.
“There was a plan to move up to halfway through the pack as soon as possible, because it kept getting stretched out after the rock garden,” van der Poel said, explaining what made the 20-minute effrort so taxing. “But I couldn’t really recover , so it was just suffering the whole race”
Friday’s short track is, of course, the prelude to the main event: Sunday’s XCO cross country race. The Dutch racer was quick to find a silver lining in the coating of mud on his jersey.
“Those are the kind of efforts I need,” van der Poel said. “Sunday’s a different thing, but it was for sure a painful comeback.”
Adrien Boichis added another win for Specialized Factory Racing while Luca Martin finished second, adding another point to the case for Cannondale Factory Racing to continue beyond this season. Davis List (Decatholon Ford) rounds out the podium.
If you missed today’s racing, here’s how you can tune in to watch Mathieu van der Poel’s big comeback on Sunday in Les Gets, France.