This is wholly true in Grand Tour races, especially since 2023, which was the last year in which the Slovenian world champion lost a Grand Tour. It is less true for the Classics races, especially when he competes against Mathieu van der Poel, but it is certainly sufficiently prevalent to be referred to as an “effect.” And the mention of the Alpecin-Deceuninck superstar offers a perfect segue to how the Pogačar Effect affects cyclocross in races in which the seven-time cyclocross world champion rides.
In addition to his three world championships in a row, van der Poel has also won 15 of the last 16 cyclocross races he has ridden going back to 2023, many of them from start to finish and by significant margins. In those races, the suspense was basically over before half the race had been run. On the other hand, the races in which he doesn’t ride – such as last Sunday’s Elite Men’s European Championship and, two days later, the Superprestige Niel – are often thrilling and suspenseful from start to finish.
In the European Championships, eight riders had a chance to win at the start of the final lap of the race, and about 300 meters from the finish line five riders were still in the lead group. At that point, Toon Aerts and Thibau Nys opened a gap and rode together into the home stretch, where Aerts was able to hold off his Belgian compatriot in an all-out sprint. It doesn’t get more exciting than that – except perhaps for the finish the following Tuesday in the Superprestige Niel.
In that race, as in the European Championship, the lead kept changing throughout the race, as did the lead groups, until a group of three – Laurens Sweeck, Niels Vandeputte and Michael Vanthourenhout – rode into the final lap with a modest lead over Emiel Verstrynge, with Felipe Orts close behind. Vanthourenhout cracked in the final 15 metres, which left Vandeputte to sprint against Sweeck, who won by the slimmest of margins, perhaps the thickness of his tire.
Two races and two thrilling sprint finishes. I can’t remember the last time van der Poel was involved in a final sprint in a cyclocross race. As usual, he will race a reduced schedule of cyclocross races this season, with his main goal being a record-breaking eighth rainbow jersey at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Liévin, France. He is expected to start his season in mid-December, as he did last year.
Which means that we may see another month of tight races and exciting finishes.
But what about Wout van Aert, who used to dominate cyclocross races as well? According to Cycling Week, he plans to compete in six events, following a streamlined schedule tailored to his training needs. These races are:
• December 23: Mol Superprestige
• December 27: Loenhout Exact Cross
• January 4: Gullegem Superprestige
• January 5: Dendermonde World Cup
• January 19: Benidorm World Cup
• January 25: Maasmechelen World Cup
Van Aert said that he will skip the Cyclocross World Championships, choosing instead to focus on preparations for the road season, particularly the 2026 Spring Classics and the Tour de France. In other words, he is prioritizing his road season over cyclocross, while emphasizing that ‘cross remains his first love. As for Tom Pidcock, he is apparently not riding cyclocross this year, instead preparing to build on his excellent 2025 road season with his Q36.5 team.
That leaves the reigning and no doubt future champ, who will ride about 10 races, win nine or all of them, and then bring home his eighth world title. The temptation is to say “Yawn,” but that’s neither true nor fair. Though some cyclocross riders may be secretly cross that van der Poel parachutes in as he pleases, wins as he pleases and goes home with the big crown while they toil for long months and come into the tail end of the season with dozens of races in their legs while he has had a lot of time to rest and recover from his road season, they did all the work, but van der Poel gets the glory.
But it is what it is – and what it is, as a lot of people in the discipline believe, is that he is good for cyclocross. As the great Sven Nys put it in 2023, talking about van der Poel and van Aert, “The fact that they continue to ‘cross is a victory.” He means that they bring the spectators and the sponsors and the attention to the sport, and many of the people who come to see van der Poel dominate may come to a few more races the following year simply for the sport. In addition, some TV stations that are reluctant to cover any cyclocross race other than the major races will have cameras at every race in which van der Poel and/or van Aert ride. As a result, their participation in races makes everyone in the sport richer.
That is the undeniable truth of the Pogačar Effect: everybody loves a winner, and dominant winners, in cycling as in other sports, are celebrities, like movie stars. Just think of Pogačar as the sport’s Brad Pitt and van der Poel as Tom Cruise.
