ANALYSIS | Will Mathieu van der Poel make cyclocross history this winter?

Mathieu van der Poel will stand on the start line at Namur World Cup on 14 December with history hanging over his shoulders as heavily as the mud on his tyres. The reigning world champion begins his 2025-26 cyclocross campaign already tied for the all-time record of seven elite world titles. One more rainbow jersey would move him clear of Erik De Vlaeminck and into territory no male rider has ever reached. For a rider who just delivered one of the great all-round seasons on the road, this winter is about something even bigger than another run of wins; it is about closing the argument over who owns cyclocross’s greatest legacy.

In Liévin earlier this year, van der Poel won his seventh elite cyclocross world title, equalling De Vlaeminck’s mark that had stood since the Belgian took his final crown in 1973. That victory, 45 seconds ahead of Wout van Aert with Thibau Nys third, also capped a flawless winter in which the Dutchman won every race he started.

It was the culmination of a two-season run that already looks barely believable: 13 wins from 14 races in 2023-24, followed by eight wins from eight starts last winter. So on paper, the Dutchman looks unstoppable in his quest for an eight cyclocross rainbow jersey.

That is the form line he carries into Namur, his first race back after a road year that would be a career peak for most riders. In the spring he took his second Milano-Sanremo, winning from a select trio of Tadej Pogacar and Filippo Ganna, then added an eighth Monument by defending Paris-Roubaix with a long solo move on the cobbles after his Slovenian rival crashed.

By July he had finally added another key item to his palmarès, winning stage 2 of the Tour de France in Boulogne-sur-Mer and pulling on the yellow jersey for the second time in his career, a lead he later briefly lost and then regained on stage 6. For most riders, that would be enough to justify easing through the winter, for van der Poel, it is the springboard into another targeted cross campaign with one very clear goal.

The target is simple: an eighth world title at the 2026 World Championships in Hulst. The weight of what that would mean is anything but. De Vlaeminck’s seven titles, collected between 1966 and 1973, have been the reference point for half a century.

Inside his camp, there is no pretence that this winter is just about “fun on the cross bike”. When Alpecin confirmed that van der Poel would start his season at Namur, team manager Christoph Roodhooft told Sporza, "I have the feeling he's had enough of training. He's ready to come to Belgium and compete."

In another interview around the same announcement, Roodhooft remarked that his star rider "has had enough of just training in the Spanish sun" and is eager to pin on a number again.

If anything, the numbers make his task look even starker. In the last two winters, only one rider has beaten van der Poel in a cyclocross race, his slip-strewn day at the Benidorm World Cup in 2023-24. Since then every time he has pinned on a cross number he has won, often by simply riding away in the first laps and turning the rest of the race into a time trial. The UCI itself called his seventh title in Liévin a "magnificent seventh" and he will be the firm favourite to win an 8th in early 2026.

Van der Poel’s own words after winning his sixth title in Tábor in 2024 hinted at how much he feels the pressure on days like these. "It would have been a shame to miss out on the world title after such a season. But a race still has to be run, and the top favourite has often not won," he said then. Even in that moment of victory, there was an awareness that records do not entitle anyone to anything when the race gets underway That realism is part of what makes this winter compelling: he knows that as the favourite he has far more to lose than anyone else on the grid.

What makes the 2025-26 campaign unusual is the shape of the opposition. Wout van Aert, his great generational rival, will race a compact cyclocross calendar built around the Christmas block and the Belgian Championships, but, at least for now, the World Championships are not on his programme.

Reports from Visma Lease a Bike underline that he will face van der Poel five times during the winter, but then turn his focus fully to the spring classics rather than chase another rainbow jersey. The door to a late change appears to be “a bit open”, as some Belgian commentators have hinted, yet all the official messaging points towards Van Aert skipping Hulst. However, he did say that last year, before showing up on the start line.

In truth, it is 3 years now since Van Aert has been Van der Poel’s level. Still, it will be great to see the old rivals lock horns again this winter.

If Van Aert does indeed stay away from the Worlds, that shifts more attention onto Thibau Nys as the rider most likely to catch van der Poel on an off day. Nys, already European and Belgian champion at elite level, has built an impressive World Cup record with multiple wins over the last three seasons and arrives in this winter’s campaign as Belgium’s rising standard-bearer.

His performances this autumn, including victory at Flamanville and a string of aggressive rides in the X2O Trofee, show a rider who is learning to manage the demands of week-in, week-out contention. But even Nys’ best days so far suggest that it will take something exceptional, his perfect race combined with van der Poel’s rare misstep, to flip the script at a one-day championship.

The course in Hulst, too, feeds into the sense that this is van der Poel’s title to lose. The Dutch circuit, with its sharp climbs, tight corners and transitions between grass, mud and dykes, rewards explosive power and bike handling, exactly the tools that have carried him to those seven previous titles.

He has used similar technical layouts in places like Namur, Zonhoven and Gavere as dress rehearsals for years, often arriving with minimal time on the cross bike but still riding straight to the front. His preparation this time follows the same pattern: a long period focused on the road, then a late switch to cyclocross with a concentrated block of racing rather than a full season.

In 2025, van der Poel did more than just win races; he tightened his grip on the spring classics and added a deeper Grand Tour chapter to his story. Milano-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix and a spell in yellow at the Tour, all in the same year, and his rivalry with Pogacar has arguably overtaken Pogacar’s rivalry with Vingegaard in the grand tours.

Going back to the fields and barriers after that kind of summer is not a step down, it is a chance to underline that, even with everything he is doing on the road, he still owns a discipline outright.

The mental side of that balancing act should not be underestimated. Earlier in his career, van der Poel admitted that his focus was “increasingly shifting to the road” even as he kept returning each winter to collect more cross wins. Since then the pendulum has swung further in favour of the classics, yet the cyclocross calendar he has mapped out for 2025-26, 13 races, including almost every major Belgian round and the Worlds, reveals how much he still prioritises this part of his year.

From the outside, it might look as though only the World Championships really matter. In reality, the pattern of the winter will tell us a lot about where van der Poel goes next. If he continues to win almost every time he races, the debate will turn to whether he might eventually step away from ‘cross while on top,’ as some suggested he might after his sixth title.

If he falters, whether through fatigue after another heavy road year, illness like the one that ended his 2025 Tour, or simply a rival riding the race of his life, it will open up questions about how long he can keep peaking across three disciplines at once.

What is clear already is that it will take something extraordinary to stop him. The combination of his recent record, the nature of the Hulst course and the uncertainty around Van Aert’s participation leaves van der Poel as the overwhelming favourite for that eighth title. The story of this winter is whether he can handle the expectation he has created for himself and, once again, turn a short but intense season into another defining line on his palmarès.

For a rider who has spent the past few years bending monuments, cobbled classics and even the Tour de France to his will, the chance to stand alone as cyclocross’s greatest champion might be the most important finish line of all.