"The difference is astonishing" - Johan Bruyneel on Mathieu van der Poel's cyclocross domination; predicts him and Tadej Pogacar as 2026 monuments winners

Cycling in 2025 has been perhaps the most predictable in a long time. The overwhelming dominance of Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel in their respective specialties have seen them winner every major title, and Johan Bruyneel predicts this to continue being the case in 2026.

"Van der Poel's raced six races, six wins. No-one can touch the guy, he's making the world's best cross riders look silly," Spencer Martin argued in The Move podcast. "[Wout] Van Aert has raced five times, his results: 7th, 2nd, 2nd, 6th, 10th, obviously not as good... Beaten by Tibor del Grosso in another one of the races at the Zolder Superprestige I thought it was another fantastic race, I was shocked he didn't win that against del Grosso".

And a record is likely incoming for the Dutchman. "It would take an illness or an accident for him not to become an eighth time World Champion, which is unbelievable," Johan Bruyneel defended. "Right now he is seven, so he's tried with Erick de Vlaeminck".

"If he wins - and all these races he's doing now are basically a warm-up to the World Championships which are his big goal. Apparently, I don't know if it's confirmed, but he hinted that if he wins the worlds he's done with cyclocross he's going to pull the plug with cyclocross, because there's nothing else for him to win". That has been discussed, but the option would ultimately always be on the Dutchman's shoulders. And what he did in 2024-2025, not losing a single racing throughout his entire winter's racing, looks like it will be replicated again this time around.

"It's crazy, the first race he did was in Namur, it was the only one where there was suspense until the end, Thibau Nys was able to follow him several times but then he made a mistake and crashed. But other than that [...] It's like his bike is on rails, he has that much power that he just goes on rails through the sand, through the mud, it's unbelievable. The difference is astonishing".

With the two remaining healthy and virtually injury-free, they continue to maintain their level and improve by the year, which allowed them to take control of the big races even more. Pogacar comfortably won the Tour de France, Strade Bianche, World and European Championships. And in combination, they won all five monuments, with very few riders coming close of even being in contention with them.  

Bruyneel makes a prediction towards 2026, perhaps a deja vu: "I'm going to say van der Poel wins Milano-Sanremo, Pogacar wins Flanders, van der Poel wins Roubaix, which is a difficult one to predict because of mechanicals. Then Liège wins Pogacar and Lombardia wins Pogacar".

Those are the exact results that we have seen this year, and perhaps a sign of the current stagnation of the competition at the top, although a few of the top races have delivered good spectacle this year. "These two riders are winning all five monuments in my opinion".