{"id":755549,"date":"2026-08-31T11:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755549\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:58:10","slug":"i-just-wasnt-good-enough-mathieu-van-der-poel-rues-another-year-where-promising-mountain-bike-form-fades-for-world-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755549\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I just wasn’t good enough’ \u2013\u00a0Mathieu van der Poel rues another year where promising mountain bike form fades for World Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jumping away from the road and chasing that elusive UCI Mountain Bike World Championships<\/a> with just one race for the season under the belt was never going to be an easy mission, but Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> had delivered every reason to hope when he rocketed straight to the World Cup Cross-Country Olympic podium in Les Gets.<\/p>\n

Just the week before the rainbow race the Dutch Alpecin-Premier Tech had moved seamlessly through the field and taken part in a two-way battle for the victory<\/a>. It wasn’t just the form that had taken him to first in the Tour de France on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es that was clearly evident, but also a degree of comfort on the challenging terrain that boded well for the all important appointment at Val di Sole just a week away.<\/p>\n

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He was, however, even further back on the start grid for the World Championships race though he wasn’t the only road regular facing that awkward starting position, with Tom Pidcock facing a similar challenge. The difference was that the rider from Great Britain quickly chipped away, steadily moving up, but Van der Poel seemed to hit a wall.<\/p>\n

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There was progress as he moved into the top 20 through the opening stages of the seven-lap race but then Van der Poel headed in the other direction, dropping out of the top 20 to cross the final finish line in 30th place, 4:40 back from a victorious Pidcock.<\/p>\n

“I just wasn\u2019t good enough. I don\u2019t really know the reason. It was more or less the same as last year: a good feeling in Les Gets, but bad at the Worlds,” said Van der Poel in a media release from the event.<\/p>\n

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Last year it was sixth at Les Gets and then 29th at World Championships. The rider has a hefty collection of rainbow jersey’s from other disciplines \u2013 cyclo-cross, gravel and road \u2013 the pursuit of this one is proving difficult, particularly with the time to race the mountain bike hard to come by.<\/p>\n

“Those bad results are indeed piling up a bit now,” Van der Poel told reporters after the event according to a report on NU.nl<\/a>. “But last year I could feel it coming that I wasn’t 100 percent at the World Championships. I had expected a lot more from it this time. But I can’t change anything about it now. Unfortunately, days like this happen too.”<\/p>\n

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Now, though, he’ll be hoping they don’t come again for the rainbow jersey battles ahead, either as he continues the pursuit of a mountain bike title in the years to come or the one he will be facing far sooner, at the end of September in Montreal on the road<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For unbeatable coverage across road, gravel and tech, subscribe to Cyclingnews. You’ll get comprehensive race coverage of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, subscriber-exclusive analysis from our expert columnists, in-depth features and industry-leading tech insight. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jumping away from the road and chasing that elusive UCI Mountain Bike World Championships with just one race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-755549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}