Van der Poel prefers to rest and renounces to the Short Track World Championship

 

The excitement of seeing Mathieu van der Poel at the World Short Track Championships was short-lived. After seeing him registered in the list of participants and that his federation brought forward his participation when the qualifying rounds were cancelled, he has finally confirmed that he will not be in the starting line.

Van der Poel's goal is to arrive at Saturday's XCO World Championships in top condition

Van der Poel himself explained that the crash he suffered at the World Road Championships had left him with after-effects that he had not considered because of the emotion of the moment.

"I hurt myself pretty bad in my crash on Sunday" "Because of the adrenaline, I didn't realize it during the race, but when I finished I noticed immediately that I had hurt myself."

 

So his strategy has changed, he will skip the Short Track event and is fully focused on achieving his goal on Saturday. That is to be as far ahead as possible starting from the last position to try to get an Olympic place for Paris 2024.

"Now I'm doing 2 or 3 laps here every day to get used to the circuit. Saturday will be quite complicated."

The XCO World Championship will be held next August 12th starting at 11:30 and here we tell you how to watch it live.