The Maasmechelen event will mark the return to racing of everybody’s favourite for the world championship (as well as for both World Cup races), Mathieu van der Poel. The 29-year-old Alpecin Deceuninck rider, who has won six cyclo-cross world championships, including five of the last six, had his preparations disrupted due to a rib injury suffered in the fourth of the five consecutive races he won at the end of last year and was forced to sit out several races.
It’s unlikely that the forced rest harmed his chances for the worlds. Van der Poel trains hard and is so superior to the rest of the field that he doesn’t have to be the best to win. As he said after winning his first race of this cyclo-cross season, the Zonhoven World Cup, on December 22, by 1:30, “Yes, it was a great victory today, but I preferred to save myself and stay in zone two throughout the race because I plan to do some high-intensity training this week.”
Right. Zone two. That must have warmed the hearts of the also-rans in that race, such as European champion Thibau Nys, who finished second, and the then Belgian champion, Eli Iserbyt, who finished eighth at 2:22. There’s no debating the fact that, no matter how much we admire an athlete’s dominance, his absence from the previous races made those races far more interesting because they were actually competitive and it wasn’t clear until the end who would win.
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If van der Poel rides the weekend’s races at zone two or even less, there are only two riders who could give him a run for his money, Nys (Baloise Glowi Lions) and his old nemesis Wout van Aert (Visma–Lease a Bike). Nys has had an inconsistent season, marked by illness at the start and a few crashes, but last Sunday, he returned to the scene of his European championship triumph, Benidorm, Spain, rode an intelligent race and dominated his rivals in the final lap. You have to assume that a young rider as ambitious as the 22-year-old son of cyclo-cross legend Sven Nys will not be racing for second place at the world championships and that the weekend races will give him a chance to rattle van der Poel’s cage a little.
As for van Aert, Saturday’s race will be his final cyclo-cross race of the 2024-25 season. He will be skipping the worlds to prepare for an intense spring Classics schedule as well as the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. He seemed to be in great shape when winning two races on the weekend of January 4-5, but he could only finish fourth behind Nys at Benidorm. But I think he’ll be back at his best on Saturday, so that we may see three riders gunning for the win when the race reaches decision time. Or not – if van der Poel has fully recovered and is fully fit.
What seems to be certain is the name of the winner of the season’s World Cup competition. With 231 points, Michael Vanthourenhout (Pauwels Sauzen–Cibel Clementines) has an almost insurmountable lead over Toon Aerts (Deschacht-Hens-FSP), with 198, and his teammate Iserbyt, with 169. If he finishes seventh in both races, that will give him an additional 34 points and put him safely out of Aerts’ reach.
So, that competition has little suspense left. But let’s hope that the weekend’s races will have some tension and perhaps even at least one surprise ending.