“Out of his depth” - Thibau Nys ends road season ahead of cyclocross campaign

Thibau Nys has drawn the curtain on his 2025 road campaign and is now preparing for a full winter of cyclocross. The 22-year-old Belgian, one of the most unique young riders in the peloton, will return to the mud and cobbles of his second discipline after a long year on the road that included a debut Tour de France. His coach, Paul van den Bosch, confirmed to WielerFlits that Nys will take a short break before starting his cross season on November 1st at the Koppenberg.

Originally, Nys had been scheduled to travel to Canada for the WorldTour one-day races in Québec and Montréal, but their cancellation forced a change of plans. In any case, both rider and coach agreed that his road year had already stretched him to the limit.

"But Thibau felt that, due to various circumstances, he was a bit out of his depth. He let the team know that he's not the Thibau he expected to be at the moment. And in my opinion, that's not illogical," Van den Bosch explained.

The coach underlined just how much his rider had on his plate across the season.

"It's been a lot, hasn't it? After a full cyclocross winter, he rode a road season this year with 44 days of racing. Almost all of those were WorldTour-level races. It's not easy to combine all that at 22," says Van den Bosch. "That's why this is the ideal time to take a break. A break from the bike for two weeks. That way we'll know for sure we're not overloading him."

Nys entered 2025 with high expectations after a stellar cyclocross campaign that saw him win the European title, claim a World Cup race, and finish third at the World Championships behind Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. On the road, he continued to impress, winning the GP Miguel Induráin and making his Tour de France debut.

The Tour brought more challenges than results. Nys had a difficult lead-in, with crashes and illness disrupting his preparation, and then fell again during the opening week.

“Not necessarily the Tour itself, because although he hasn't ridden a single result since the Tour, the Renewi Tour, for example, was certainly not bad. He had some bad luck with his bike on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, but the final stage to Leuven was very good. But apart from that, it hasn't been an easy summer for Thibau. After the spring classics, which were very good, his focus quickly turned to the Tour. Barely four days after his last classic in Eschborn-Frankfurt, he started training for the summer.”

“In preparation for the Tour, he first fell during altitude training, and just as we were trying to make up ground, he got sick during the Baloise Belgium Tour. A lot went wrong during that period. The fact that he crashed in the first week of the Tour didn't help either. You know you can only do something in the Tour if you're completely fit, and that wasn't the case. We feel there was more in store. I'm not saying he would have won a stage, but a good Thibau is certainly a contender in the finals.”

He may not have shone at the Tour as he would have wanted, but he helped Lidl-Trek teammate Jonathan Milan to win 2 stages and the green jersey. At just 22, and with so much talent, Nys will have plenty of chances to shine at the Tour in the future.

“It's an experience that's priceless. I must also say that Thibau only improved throughout the Tour de France. It was important to see how he would handle those three weeks of racing, and I certainly won't consider that a failure. He finished the Tour and finished well.”

For a rider so young, balancing ambition with control is part of the process.

"Overall, it was a very positive story, especially thanks to the Ardennes Classics. But of course, expectations are always higher for Thibau. He's ambitious and sets the bar high, but it's certainly not a disaster if that bar falls short. We're in the midst of a learning process, doing everything we can to combine a full road season with cyclocross. Something no one else does. So, in our evaluation, we won't let the fact that he fell short of expectations in the Tour weigh too heavily on us."

“He doesn't have the number of wins he had last year, but you know that in advance when you design his program. You're not going to win three stages in the Tour de France, like he did last year in the Tour of Poland. But that's no disgrace. Just look at the races Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel rode or won at 22. They weren't always at the highest level either. I'm not saying Thibau will be as good as they are, but I want to emphasize that what he does is anything but straightforward.”

Attention now shifts to the cyclocross winter, where Nys is determined to build on last year’s successes. His campaign will start on the Koppenberg, a race steeped in family history.

“The cyclocross winter is a real goal. It's not that he sees cyclocross as training, like Gianni Vermeersch or Tim Merlier do. His first focus is on the Koppenberg, because that's a true Nys cyclocross. Sven has won there nine times, and for Thibau, it was one of his first major victories. It's a bit of a homecoming."

His coach doesn’t want to go overboard this winter, "I'm going to emphasize that the schedule shouldn't be too overloaded. I think he'll end up with 20 to 25 cyclocross races in total, although that's quite a lot. There also needs to be time for occasional endurance training in Spain. Because although he loves cyclocross, he'll also have to be heavily involved in the road program during the winter. And after the World Championships, we might switch back."