After all the negativity surrounding the Tokyo shelf and the teenage girls in Australia, Mathieu van der Poel has managed to bend Hoogerheide’s bars in his favor. No obstacle on the World Cup course in ‘his’ backyard, built by his father, was so milked in the run-up to this global cyclo-cross title fight as the displacement of the two bars in question. And it was precisely on this obstacle that ‘MVDP’ managed to bend the match to its will. Not with an attack, but by NOT doing what everyone expected.
It became an endless discussion that is part of the eternal battle of the Low Countries in cyclo-cross. Could it be that Adrie van der Poel, the father of one of the two top favorites, set out the World Cup course. You don’t let Jos Verstappen draw a Formula 1 circuit for Max Verstappen or Messi’s father whistle the final of the World Cup football with Argentina. So it was suggested from some angles.
Michel Wuyts, the guru of all Flemish field chauvinism, made himself heard in his column in Het Laatste Nieuws last Saturday. “Adrie van der Poel gets a kick out of some bickering. The bar history does not fall from the sky at all. It sprouted from the man’s brain months in advance and did not roll out of the printer at all to the detriment of my son. No Dutch World Cup without noise”, wrote the former Sporza cycling commentator.
The fact that the father of one of the top favorites is plotting the course of the cyclo-cross world championships perhaps illustrates the coziness in which cyclo-cross is still camped out. However, anyone who knows Adrie van der Poel a little knows that he mainly tries to set out a course that is as safe and beautiful as possible for his sport. He will not abuse his position and sportsmanship is of paramount importance.
Photo: Cor Vos
The criticism of father Van der Poel was parried from various Belgian sides just before the World Cup. First by two-time cyclocross world champion Niels Albert, but later also by Wout van Aert, the major competitor of son Mathieu. “This course is class. I don’t understand this shit. We shouldn’t make much more of it than it is; a beam”, were the words with which Van Aert took the sting out of the discussion.
And yet that Van Aert made a crucial error of judgment with those beams. The Belgian assumed in the last round that his eternal rival Van der Poel would assert his agility and place an attack on the beams. The Jumbo-Visma cyclo-cross rider was so convinced that he was surprised at first that ‘MVDP’ remained in his wheel. And then also confused that he didn’t know how to approach the sprint from the lead. After all, the entire race was focused on sprinting from the wheel of his opponent. As a result, Van Aert made the mistake of not starting the sprint himself immediately when turning into the finish street.
Emotions
The clenched fist and the scream at the finish and then the emotions on the podium demonstrated what this world title meant for Mathieu van der Poel. This was by far the most beautiful of his five cyclo-cross world titles.
This is also the prize he desperately needed at the moment after a difficult period. His disappointing Tour de France. The hotel drama during the World Championships on the road in Wollongong, Australia, and then he was in deep trouble again when his back problems arose again in the cross country races around the Christmas period. These were setbacks that no one puts aside for a while.
Mathieu van der Poel: “I didn’t do what everyone expected”
Thanks to the good physical and mental work of his team Alpecin-Deceuninck Van der Poel was able to work well for three weeks in January on the recovery of his back injury. In his own words, he was more involved in physiotherapy and exercises than he was on a bicycle during that period. He recovered just in time with victories in the World Cups in Benidorm and Besançon. But this winter was completely geared to this world title fight. Or rather on this duel with Wout van Aert.
After just three minutes and nineteen seconds, both made this World Cup a two-way match. A shortcoming for the competition was not the devaluation of the competition. The duel ‘MVDP’ versus ‘WVA’ again became a thriller. The master of cycling statistics Jonas Creteur even indicated that this is the 108e time was that both were together at the start of a cyclocross and that no less than 104 of those competitions were won by one of them.
Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. photo: Cor Vos
Cyclo-cross is sometimes relegated abroad to a Flemish/Dutch get-together, as we have known for decades in korfball. Given the dominance of the Belgians and the Dutch among both women and men, this is hard to argue with. But still… This exciting World Cup in Hoogerheide in an unprecedentedly fantastic setting with 38,000 spectators has once again proven the appeal of this sport. Like this entire cyclo-cross season was of an unprecedented high level.
‘Mathieu van der Poel already made a tactical masterstroke before the Cyclo-cross World Cup’
Discussions about the number of World Cups, that not all top players are present in all major races and despite the excessive dominance of the ‘road racers’. Cyclocross took steps last winter. In Dublin and Benidorm it was proven that not only the cyclo-crosses in the Low Countries are successful and are visited by a large audience. If cyclo-cross is to develop more globally, further internationalization will have to be pursued. The fact that cities such as London, New York and Munich are showing interest in organizing a World Cup competition in the future should be seen as an opportunity by the sport.
