Saturday, December 23, 2023 at 4:40 PM
Another second place for Wout van Aert. On Friday he had to leave Mathieu van der Poel in the Exact Cross Mol, on Saturday the world champion was too strong in the Antwerp World Cup. “I felt quite good actually,” Van Aert said in the flash interview after that last cross.
“I was in a good position at the beginning,” said the Jumbo-Visma rider. “I think I rode this race a bit more conservatively. I tried to drive between the wheels. That was the right tactic. Why did I choose that? Because I don’t have the shape to ride the entire cross full throttle. Now I was able to accelerate in the last two laps with Iserbyt.”
While Van Aert got off to a good start, Van der Poel missed his start. However, Van Aert was unable to really benefit. “I was rather happy with the position I had and tried to hold on to it. It went quite quickly in the first round. I thought it was impressive how quickly Mathieu came along. After that we also saw that he was the better one. I’m glad I didn’t get burned by that today and chose to ride my own course.”
The Antwerp World Cup was Van Aert’s third cross of his season. “The first cross was something completely different from yesterday and today,” he refers to the Exact Cross Essen, which he managed to win. “That was really in the mud. I’m also looking forward to doing that again these weeks. Fast cross-country skiing, like yesterday (in Mol, ed.), is really tough. It is also the most difficult to train on. Today I felt a lot better than yesterday and I’m happy with how it ended.”
2023-12-23 15:40:00
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