Dutch pundit on Mathieu van der Poel's MTB Olympic dreams - "If he really wants to go..."

Mathieu van der Poel is a World Champion on the road, gravel and cyclocross on multiple occasions already but is missing Mountain Biking on his palmarès. Over the years he has put in some focus on it, but not enough to succeed. Richard Groenendaal questions his commitment and believes there has to be a change if he wants to take an Olympic title as well.

"Mountain biking is a very specialized sport. That will also require adjustments for Mathieu van der Poel. But I don't know exactly what those adjustments will be," Groenendaal argued for Wielerevue. In the past he has won national and European championships in the discipline, as well as World Cup rounds, however this was mostly during the years where he wasn't a World Tour rider and mostly combined with cyclocross in the winter.

"Van der Poel has only competed in two mountain bike races in recent years: in Nove Mesto and the World Championships. If he really wants to go for gold, he will have to drastically adjust his road program," the Dutch pundit argues. Van der Poel naturally puts in a lot of focus on the spring classics where he is extremely successful, whilst also putting in the Tour de France and World Championships occasionally on his big goal list.

It becomes hard to manage such a large amount of goals as well as the preparation required for them, taking into consideration too that he works hard during the winter in cyclocross - where to be fair, he consistently delivers results. "If it looks more like a refined cyclocross course, then he has a chance. But if it becomes a tough circuit with long climbs, then it will be very difficult for Van der Poel as well."

With the record of cyclocross world titles within reach and a potential Olympic bid of the discipline for the very first time in 2030, he may not abandon his goals in cyclocross so the big question really is on what he may or may not want to do on the road. At this point in his career he has won Milano-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix on several occasions, has won the world championships as well as stages and leadership stints at the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia. There is not much more he can achieve, and it is a possibility to reduce his schedule over the coming years so as to give mountain biking more room.

"I've also combined three disciplines, but that was in a different era. Back then, races lasted two and a half to three hours, and I didn't really get along with the mountain bike. It just wasn't really my discipline."

"If Van der Poel wants something, he'll probably have to put in more time than eight years ago, when he became European champion. The sport is evolving, and he's getting older too. He's already won everything on the road, so there's room to focus on that Olympic dream," the former pro argues logically.

However he feels that the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider does in some way suffer from the outside pressure and commentary which is a constant around him. "I actually think we shouldn't all have an opinion about what Van der Poel should or shouldn't do. If he has Olympic ambitions on the mountain bike, he'll certainly know what to do. Better than we do, anyway."

"Cyclocross doesn't take much energy. He does this in a short period and needs that stimulation. That's how he stays sharp, because that's the discipline in which he grew up. The transition from cyclocross to road is easy for him, because those worlds are technically closer. Mountain biking is simply a completely different sport," he concluded, unlike Tom Pidcock for example who has become a double Olympic Champion despite not following a full-time schedule.