Nys hopes for top ten in mountain bike worlds

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Sven Nys is Belgium's only representative in the men's elite race at the mountain bike world championship cross-country race on Saturday, and he is aiming for a top ten finish.

Nys is better known as a cyclo-cross rider, having won the Belgian national title seven times and the world title once. But he has also won the Belgian national mountain bike title twice, and finished ninth in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

“I have already proved that I can place in the top ten in the World Cup,” he pointed out as he prepared for the race in Mont-Saint-Anne, near Quebec, Canada.

Nys is building toward the 2012 Olympics in London. “I would like to improve on my ninth place in Beijing,” he told the Dutch Sport Magazine.

“I think I am on schedule. I wouldn't dare to say the word 'medal'. But if things keep going so well, I think I can be close to it. It is a dream which may come true.”

After returning from the Worlds in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada, he will get back to cyclo-cross. “I will give myself three weeks to adapt back to cross. I will have to be ready in early October and will ride regularly over the winter.”