At the Vuelta a España, a mountain biker is training for the Olympics

Alpecin-Deceuninck's Sam Gaze has spent the past couple of days in Andorra. So far, so normal, given the Mountain Bike World Cup took place here at the weekend. But the Kiwi hasn’t been on his mountain bike. Instead, he has been part of the Vuelta a España as it has rolled in and out of the Pyrenees.

Barely two weeks ago, Gaze was on the podium at the ’super’ World Championships, winning the short track MTB world title before finishing runner-up behind Tom Pidcock in the cross-country race. Now, he finds himself four days into his first Grand Tour.

But this isn’t a case of a multi-discipline talent looking to get his nascent road career off the ground. In fact, as much as a Grand Tour can be considered ‘training’ for anything, let alone a different discipline, these three weeks are all about MTB, specifically Gaze’s ambitions at the Olympic Games in Paris next summer.

“We decided about a month ago to race the Vuelta, predominantly for my development. Next year is a very important year with the Olympics and we thought this was a good idea,” Gaze told GCN.

“It’s a shame not to be on the mountain bike for the World Cups, but I’m really happy with this opportunity."

Read more: UCI World Championships: Sam Gaze takes back-to-back short track MTB rainbows

It’s often said that a first Grand Tour gives riders a platform on which to build for the future, the 21 straight days of hard, spontaneous racing accruing to mould a more robust athlete, and Gaze believes this doesn’t have to apply only to the road.

“Mountain bike races are only like 80-90 minutes long but it’s really intense racing. The depth from a three-week race means you can actually head out harder and hold on,” he said.

“Obviously I haven’t done a Grand Tour so I don’t know now exactly what benefits I’ll get out of it, but a lot of guys who have done them say it changes them, so let’s hope it’s the same for me.”

Gaze has had an eye-catching start to the Vuelta, helping Kaden Groves to victory on stage 4, having come close to doing so on the second day in Barcelona.

“At the moment, for me it’s not so much the power that’s the problem, it’s more making sure I’m efficiently getting to the key points,” he explained. “I made a small error [on stage 2] and lost momentum at the bottom of that last climb so I couldn’t do more, but I’m taking it step by step.”

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Sam Gaze helped deliver Kaden Groves and Alpecin-Deceuninck to the win on stage 4 of the Vuelta

Gaze, 27, is using the road primarily as training for now, but it’s set to become a greater focus once the Olympics - which he described as his “biggest life goal” - have come and gone. He started to dabble outside of mountain biking in 2019 and earned a stagiaire spot with Soudal Quick-Step before signing for Alpecin in 2020.

Since then, he has done precious few races - 32 days in three years, in fact - meaning he’ll get two-thirds of the way to that total in these three weeks alone.

“I definitely think races like Roubaix and Flanders - the Classics - really suit me,” he said when asked about the type of rider he sees himself becoming.

“I raced Strade Bianche this year, and I really like the idea of those races. I’m unsure what exactly I could accomplish but all the things point to the possibility that I could also have a successful time on the road.”

Part of that evidence is that it’s being done already by a new generation of multi-disciplinary stars, the prime example being Mathieu van der Poel, the road race and cyclo-cross world champion who is a perennial contender in the major international MTB events - and also rides for Alpecin-Deceuninck.

“These guys pioneered it, especially Mathieu at the beginning, and also Wout [Van Aert] with the ‘cross. I don’t count myself as one of these titans - these guys are demi-gods - but for sure it shows that it’s possible. If they can do it, maybe someone else can too.”

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