David Valero, clear about the Mountain Bike World Championship: "Van der Poel is not the rival to beat"

David Valero, bronze medalist in Mountain Bike at the last Olympic Games, is one of the great assets of Spanish cycling to get a medal at the World Championships 2023. The 34-year-old from Baza will face rivals who do not normally compete in his specialty, such as Mathieu van der Poel, whom he does not consider the favorite.

The current World Championship runner-up and number 1 in the UCI ranking in 2022, has been interviewed by the diario AS colleagues and has talked about how he faces the Glasgow race.

"In this 2023, it is the most important event we have and I think we prepare all the riders with a little more care with respect to the World Cup. In the end it can be a good World Championships, where all the riders measure ourselves. It is the event with the most points at stake and with the greatest importance, in this case, for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024".

"I think I'm doing quite well, at an optimal point. I haven't had good results, but I'm a little bit calmer because I know that next year will be quite a complicated year. We will have to fight to have another peak of form before the Games to decide who goes to Paris."

"Well, I still don't know the whole schedule and all that, but we arrived Tuesday night (yesterday). At first, on Wednesday, I'm going to train at the circuit. I want to recognize it well, see all the lines, all the lines and study it well to the maximum. And on Friday I'll definitely go back to the circuit to finish the last check and do a little more specific training, something I like to do the day before an important event".

"We haven't raced there any time. I raced, but at the Europeans in 2018, which is in the same place. And from what I've seen on video, it has a couple of climbs that are pretty tough. And then it has some downhill areas, quite artificial altitudes and some natural area, but I think that's the least of it. It is a circuit very similar to those of an Olympics or an important event. We don't know anything fixed because from watching it on video to live, the film changes a lot".

"The climbs are hard, and the good thing is that they are with good distance. In the end, nowadays more or less all the cross country circuits are more or less similar. In the end, for those of us who are fighting at the front, it can penalize you a little bit."

"I don't think so. Van der Poel always puts on the show wherever he goes, but this year, for example, he doesn't start in front with the front guys. He has no grid, no UCI points and I guess he'll start from the last. For me, among the rivals to beat are Nino Schurter and Tom Pidcock, who doesn't have a good grid either, but well, he'll start on the fourth line or so. Then there are the World Championships riders: Luca Schwarzbauer, Jordan Sarrou, Mathias Flückiger, Joshua Dubau...".

"Before the race selection they have to do a lot more wear and tear than what we have to do. The way to beat them is to counterattack when they arrive to try to make sure they don't have time to recover and make a mistake. In the end, then the race choices are different, because if there are three or four riders and we think more or less the same, you can do a bit of strategy, but if everyone is looking a little bit for his own, the situation will be very difficult. Until it happens, you can't predict it.

"Yes. Last year I came within 9 seconds of Nino in the World Championships, and well, in the end the goal is the medal, to fight for the rainbow."