"I am a very calm person next to the bike, but once in the peloton that changes" - Olav Kooij believes he has the elite mentality required to win the World Championship

Although Olav Kooij won't be one going into the men's elite World Championships road race as one of the outright favourites to take the win, write him off at your peril. An elite-level mentality and some very fast sprinting legs mean Kooij is a dark horse for the Rainbow Jersey.

“If you don't always want to win, you're not a sprinter. That winning mentality is very important to ultimately really participate in a mass sprint and then to win," says the 21-year-old Dutchman in a pre-World Championship interview with Wielerflits. "It's not that if you're a gentle person, you can't be a killer. I think you have to separate the person and the rider. I am a very calm person next to the bike, but once in the peloton that changes. That winning mentality ensures that you can hold your own in the final.”

Kooij is very adept at holding his own in the final of races, with 22 professional wins already to his name, most recently winning stage 4 of the Tour de Pologne. The Jumbo-Visma youngster win't be the outright leader of the Dutch team, that moniker falls to Mathieu van der Poel, Kooij could be their main hope if it ends in a bunch sprint.

“The biggest thing I can achieve as a sprinter is a stage in the Tour. I also think of Milan-San Remo, although that has not really been the case in recent years. But if you look at the palmares there, the best sprinters can always stand up," Kooij says of his future goals. "Together with the Tour and also the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España, those are the biggest races for me.”

“The chances that you get a shot at all in your career in which you can become world champion… Those will really be rare," he concludes, looking ahead towards Glasgow. "The World Championship is always a separate competition. But riding in that rainbow jersey for a year, that is magical.”