After two months away from racing, Mathieu Van der Pol will be back in action this week for his final tune-up to the Tour de France and to win two rainbow jerseys at the world championships in Glasgow.

The Dutch rider, who wore the number when he won Paris-Roubaix in April, will resume his season on Saturday at the Dwars door het Haegeland before competing in next week's Baloise Belgian Tour. Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon from his training camp in La Plagne, he explained why he chose to ride the scales in Belgium instead of the Tour de Suisse.

"I would rather go all out for victory in Belgium than enter the Grupetto in Switzerland," Van der Pol said.

"Taking into account the time trial, I think Switzerland and Belgium are about the same number of race days.

Van der Pol will have no shortage of races ahead of him, as he will be competing in both the road and mountain bike events in Glasgow at the first edition of the quadrennial UCI World Championships. The road race will be held on August 6, and the mountain bike race six days later.

While winning his first elite world title on the road will be the main focus of his Scottish tour, Van der Pol is also mindful that he needs to start earning qualifying points in order to compete for mountain bike gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Van der Pol was a strong contender for gold at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, but was eliminated from this event.

"We talked about it here in La Plagne. Usually we do the mountain bike world championships the week after the road world championships, but we don't have any specific preparations," van der Pol said.

"There's no pressure, I'm just trying to acclimatize by doing a little mountain biking the week after the road world championships. I'm going anyway, so maybe something good will happen there. Of course, I should be in good shape from the road world championships, so I'll give it a shot and see how it goes."

There are only 36 places in the Olympic cross-country event, with the top eight countries receiving two spots. The Netherlands is currently ranked 31st, so Van der Pol will be competing in mountain bike races later in the season, starting with the Glasgow World Championships.

"It's not easy to get there and that's why I took a chance and went to the World Championships without any mountain bike training beforehand," van der Pol said.

"It's a bit of a gamble, but you have to try to get a starting spot in Paris. If you want to go to Paris, you have to do mountain biking."

Van der Pol can head into the summer campaign feeling relaxed after a winter in which he won his fifth cyclocross world title and a spring in which he won Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix and finished second behind Tadej Pogacar in the turbulent Tour de Flanders .

These successes seemed to prove Alpecin Deceuninck's team philosophy. They housed the Classics unit in a training camp in Denia early in the season, prioritizing training over racing.

These extended training camps changed the pace of van der Pol, who had spent much of the early part of his career bouncing back and forth between disciplines and from race to race. 28 years old and having suffered back injuries for the past two years, van der Pol, perhaps reluctantly, began to understand the value of such patience. beginning to understand the value of patience.

"If I succeed like I did in the spring classic, that would be great," he said. But right now I'm really eager to get back in the race." [27] [28] "I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it. It's hard because if I crash, I've wasted a long time preparing. But I think that's part of modern cycling. I am happy with my preparation now. I have already been to many races in my life and now I am sure that when I stand on the starting line it will mean a lot to me."

"Before, I had too many races and sometimes I would go from race to race unprepared. But I think I've had good training. I think by doing so I can reach a different level."

This will be Van der Pol's third Tour de France, but his last two appearances ended in early retirements for very different reasons. He retained the maillot jaune but had to abandon the race midway through to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics. On the other hand, last year he arrived at the Tour exhausted from the Giro d'Italia and retired on stage 11.

"I want to make it a good Tour. I'm looking forward to riding my best Tour because this is the first year I've really prepared well without thinking about anything else. I think we will be a strong team."

Despite his focus on the Glasgow World Championships, Van der Pol confirmed his intention to finish the Tour.

"Paris is the last destination before the World Championships. Paris is the last stop before the World Championships. I want it to be a good Tour, like the Giro last year. I don't think it makes sense to use too much energy during the Tour, but I'm not going to hold back too much either."