"I'm pretty mad at myself for making such a stupid mistake" - Mathieu van der Poel on the aftermath of XCO World Championships crash

Mathieu van der Poel has had an unique approach to these World Championships and seeked a result and UCI points today at the XCO Mountain Bike race. However he abandoned in the first lap, crashing in a slippery corner right in the first minutes of the race.

“I felt like doing another mountain biking race and seeing where I could come from today. Most of all, I'm pretty mad at myself for making such a stupid mistake on one of the easiest sections of the course," van der Poel said following his abandon. “The blow was a little too big." On the final corner of the first lap he slipped out and went down. A crash in a seemingly innocent spot, but enough to put him out of the race, hitting his knee and also injuring himself in the face.

"It was also on the side where the wounds were still open from the fall in the road race. That took a while. In the end I think it won't be too bad, but now it's time to relax and still enjoy last week's world title," he says, having abandoned on the spot, but not feeling overly bad about it.

The chances of making it to the Paris Olympic Games, despite this mishap, continue to exist, and will be the goal that he keeps regarding this discpline. "I still like to do it. We'll see, it's just a matter of seeing what we're going to do in the future. But Paris remains the goal," he concluded.