Mathieu van der Poel takes an alternative route to the World Cycling Championships

Mathieu van der Poel has returned to his beloved Spain in the run-up to his final major goal of 2026, the World Cycling Championships in Montreal. The Dutch rider from Alpecin-Premier Tech is based in Moraira, where he will fine tune his World Championships form.

Van der Poel competed in the Mountain Bike World Championships in Val di Sole in late August, but he was unable to achieve the result he had hoped for there. In Italy, starting from the fifth row, he was unable to catch the race leaders and ultimately finished just inside the top thirty.

Earlier in the season, it was reported that Van der Poel was considering using the Quebec and Montreal Grand Prix races—which will be held on Friday and Sunday—as a way to build up to the World Championships. The charter flight arranged by the organisers of the Canadian WorldTour races departed from Paris on Tuesday with Remco Evenepoel, among others, on board.

Van der Poel has decided to take a different approach after all, partly because there is a two-week gap between the Montreal Grand Prix and the Road World Championships, which are held in the same city.

Someone like Remco Evenepoel still has the World Time Trial Championships—on the Sunday in between—but even he will head to a chalet in Bromont, 80 kilometers away, along with the other Belgians who are combining the races.

Despite the fact that co-sponsor Premier Tech is Canadian, Van der Poel has chosen the setup that will take him as far as possible in his sport. After the Mountain Bike World Championships, he briefly returned to Belgium, though he continued to train hard there with Jasper Philipsen and others. He has since headed to Spain, where the weather has been significantly better these past few days.

On Tuesday, Van der Poel was already out on the road again with his regular cycling partner, Freddy Ovett. “Boys are back,” Ovett wrote as the caption for the 116-kilometer training ride. The Dutchman won’t be staying in Spain for more than a week, though, as he’ll be competing in the Tour of Luxembourg next Wednesday.

Looking back to the 2024 World Championships in Zurich—which featured a similar elevation gain—Van der Poel also chose this same build-up, which paid off for him back then. At the time, he finished third after a grueling race won by Tadej Pogačar.

In addition to Van der Poel, Bauke Mollem and Menno Huising from the Dutch national team are also competing in the five-day race in preparation for the World Championships.