“It was very painful”: Van der Poel finishes 10th on his MTB return

Mathieu van der Poel returned to mountain biking at the XCC World Cup in Les Gets almost a year after his last race in this discipline. The Dutchman finished 10th in the Short Track after starting from the last position, thus securing a spot in the second row for the XCO on Sunday. But his assessment after 23 minutes at the limit made it clear that the return was particularly demanding: "It hurt a lot."

Van der Poel returns to MTB and suffers more than expected in Les Gets

Van der Poel has returned to MTB with two different horizons. In the short term, Les Gets should serve to measure his level before the World Championship in Val di Sole next week, where he is registered for both XCO and XCC. Looking much further ahead, this return is also part of the path towards a possible participation in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.

The first test came this Friday with the Short Track. Van der Poel was able to start thanks to the new regulations introduced by the UCI this season, a change particularly relevant for riders like him, who arrive without a high position in the specific MTB ranking.

Competing in the XCC had a double interest. On one hand, to test himself before next week's Short Track World Championship. On the other, to try to gain positions for a better starting grid in the XCO in Les Gets on Sunday.

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And for that, he had to start from behind.

Van der Poel started from the last position, but it took him just a few minutes to become one of the protagonists of the race. As soon as the race started, he launched a stunning comeback and during the first half of the initial lap, he had already passed more than 20 riders.

By the start of the second lap, he had managed to connect with the large front group and, from that moment on, he remained in the fight with the best.

The problem was the cost of that comeback.

"It hurt a lot," Van der Poel admitted after crossing the finish line. The Dutchman explained that he expected to find a demanding race, but the effort turned out to be even greater than anticipated.

A large part of the explanation lay in the development of the Short Track itself. Its initial acceleration allowed him to recover practically all the positions he needed at once, but afterwards he found no moment to recover.

Unlike what can happen in certain phases of a road race or even cyclocross, the pace did not drop during the approximately 23 minutes of competition. Van der Poel had to chain his enormous initial effort with a race constantly at the limit.

Fatigue was also close to costing him even more.

On the seventh lap, while still fighting in the front group, one of his hands slipped off the handlebars while crossing the rock garden. Van der Poel managed to control the bike and avoided a fall that could have ended his return to MTB in a different way, although the incident caused him to lose numerous positions.

He still had the strength to climb back up.

The Dutchman regained ground during the final part and crossed the finish line 10th, 36 seconds behind the winner Adrien Boichis. A result that, considering he had started from the last position, fulfilled a good part of the objectives with which he approached this Short Track.

Especially because the 10th place will allow him to start from the second row in the XCO on Sunday, a completely different situation than he would have had without competing in the XCC.

Now the question will be to see how Van der Poel assimilates an effort that he himself acknowledged was tougher than expected.

Recovery is precisely one of the aspects in which the Dutchman has shown extraordinary figures. A few months ago, he shared some of his recovery data, with 34 resting heartbeats and HRV values above 200 ms, as well as explaining some of the keys he uses to recover after great efforts.

On Sunday, he will have the next test. This time it will be in XCO, from the second row and after having experienced firsthand that returning to the pace of the MTB World Cup after almost a year away was going to hurt even more than he expected.