AndyATB
Regular
6 XCO races since August 2019 - and 3 (4 if you include his clash with Valero) first lap crashes........He doesn't race, train on the MTB anyway near enough. It's not Cyclocross, where he can drop in and dominate. XCO has far more competition, and they have skills, which they hone all the time. And not only that, the technical level has increased, and so has the speed of races.....
From 2017-2019 he improved considerably, to become the best XC racer in 2019, with 3 XCO, 5 XCC World Cup wins, plus a European title. Since then it's been a bit of a disaster, mainly through lack of prep, training, racing.
Others like Puck and Pidcock do prep races before racing the World Cups - and something he used to do. If the MTB Worlds really are a goal, then he has to put the hard yards in, as Crans-Montana is really technical, and saw plenty of crashes last year.
When it was announced he was racing the Tour, the MTB fans rolled their eyes in "here we go again"......it makes no sense for his main goal; he needs time on the MTB, not pedalling around France leading out Philipsen.
From 2017-2019 he improved considerably, to become the best XC racer in 2019, with 3 XCO, 5 XCC World Cup wins, plus a European title. Since then it's been a bit of a disaster, mainly through lack of prep, training, racing.
Others like Puck and Pidcock do prep races before racing the World Cups - and something he used to do. If the MTB Worlds really are a goal, then he has to put the hard yards in, as Crans-Montana is really technical, and saw plenty of crashes last year.
When it was announced he was racing the Tour, the MTB fans rolled their eyes in "here we go again"......it makes no sense for his main goal; he needs time on the MTB, not pedalling around France leading out Philipsen.