Valtteri Bottas finishes 133rd in his category at the gravel world championships

Valtteri Bottas was thus at the start… of the Gravel Cycling World Championships, this Sunday, October 6 in Louvain (Belgium). The KICK Sauber rider took advantage of the four-week break in Formula 1 between Singapore (September 22) and Austin (October 20) to tackle his other big challenge of this season.

 

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The Finn was competing in the same competition as some of the stars of world road cycling, including Mathieu van der Poel, 2023 world road champion and double winner of Paris-Roubaix (2023 and 2024) who won the race and the rainbow jersey this Sunday, but also Matej Mohoric, triple stage winner on the Tour de France (2021, 2023) and 2023 gravel world champion, the recent European road champion Tim Merlier and the former wearer of the Yellow Jersey on the roads of the Grande Boucle (2016 and 2018), Greg van Avermaet.

Entered in the Men 35-39 category, which had 232 runners at the start, bib number 1400 finished the 182,2 kilometre course in 133rd place in his class in 5h40'04, obviously far behind the overall winner Mathieu van der Poel who won in 4h41'23.

This passion for gravel cycling is not new for the Finn, who had already participated in the European Championship in 2023. To qualify for the Worlds, the native of Nastola (Finland) had to finish in the top 25 of an event during the 24 rounds of the Gravel World Series. Which he achieved by climbing to sixth place in the Swartberg 100, a round taking place in South Africa on April 27, that is to say between the GP of China (April 21) and Miami (May 5).

Valtteri Bottas also met up with his partner Tiffany Cromwell, a professional cyclist competing in the women's World Championships. The Australian finished 36th in the Women's Elite category.

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