BREAKING: Wout van Aert confirmed for Cyclocross World Championships! - "I’ll give it my best!”

Cyclocross
Monday, 27 January 2025 at 10:54
woutvanaert

After staunchly denying the rumours all winter, it has now been officially confirmed that Wout van Aert will indeed compete at the 2025 Cyclocross World Championships in Lievin next weekend!

A three-time cyclocross world champion in (2016, 2017 and 2018), Van Aert had initially been planned to end his winter before the trip to Lievin. Speculation continued throughout the winter though, that the Belgian would actually be competing for the Rainbow Jersey and now, those rumours have proven well-founded. "We’re thrilled to announce that Wout van Aert will compete in the cyclo-cross World Championships this Sunday!" says Visma. "Motivated by his passion for the sport, Wout expressed his strong desire to be on the start line. After careful discussions, we fully support his decision and can’t wait to watch him give it his all at the worlds."

“I’m feeling good, and my winter has gone well. The World Championships only recently came into my mind and after Maasmechelen the Belgian team coach, my coach at Team Visma | Lease a Bike and I decided to compete," says Van Aert himself in an official Visma press release. "I am excited to start in such a beautiful race, and I think that this extra boost is doing me good in the lead-up to bigger goals on the road. Obviously the preparation has been very different, but I’ll give it my best.”

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12 Comments
OCexile 28 January 2025 at 02:06+ 496

i’ve got just a stunningly brilliant idea for a tv show/youtube show/WHATEVER in a few years. ready? here it is… it’s called MVDPvsWVA, or just VERSUS, or WOUT v. MATHIEU, or FRENEMIES, or who-the-hell cares. every episode, matty and wout compete in some less-than-grueling “sport.” think, like, arm wrestling, or beer chugging, or quidditch, etc. You get the idea. they each get a coach who really knows this event. they train. then, it’s ON. the thing that is gonna make it WILDLY popular? they both REALLY, REALLY want to WIN, just like in their rival days on the bike (well, close). i LOVE that they’re gonna square off at the cx World’s, one more time… Stunningly brilliant. i will miss these guys so much when they’ve hung it up, gotta savor all of what’s left.

Mistermaumau 28 January 2025 at 13:37+ 3207

The idea is good but it would hardly succeed seeing as neither is known to a public large enough to attract the critical mass needed to make the show last. If you would start it off with Musk vs Zuck or Trump vs just about anyone you’d have enough to finance all the niche spin-offs including for the cycling world though there you’d have to take care with events like arm-wrestling, at one extreme you’d have candidates ending upwith broken arms, at the other, viewers might start calling in wondering why the screen had frozen ;-)

OCexile 27 January 2025 at 02:35+ 496

i don’t care if wout has any chance to win. i don’t care why he decided to go. it’s just more fun when it’s mathieu AND wout.

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santiagobenites 27 January 2025 at 02:35+ 1666

It's great for racing fans that Wout has decided to race the cyclocross world championship, but realistically, and barring a total disaster, nobody is going to be able to touch Mathieu for the win.

Mistermaumau 27 January 2025 at 23:53+ 3207

Yeah, but we forget that big M has a history of messing up big occasions. Hopefully he’ll get his 7, he deserves it, but for that he needs to win 8 from 8 first. And if he gets 7 there’s no reason yet for hom not gettIng 8. What is also great about these two is that they never purposely avoid each other and never have a real bad word over the other.

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santiagobenites 26 January 2025 at 23:08+ 1666

Yes, they have a really fantastic sporting rivalry, and I'm greatly looking forward to watching the race.

Mistermaumau 27 January 2025 at 15:00+ 3207

I don’t know if it’s just this photo but WVA seems to have some excess weight on those cheeks.

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KerisVroom 27 January 2025 at 07:01+ 635

Well, that may be true now. But it wasn't always the case. There were bad blood between them when they were much younger. It's good that they outgrow that phase and be competitive on friendly term.

Jumpyjohn 27 January 2025 at 15:02+ 94

True, but don’t forget how your entourage can have a huge effect on young you, don’t think it was their personal character that caused this. Anyway, far better than the other way round, anyone have any recollection of friends who turned enemies (apart from just about anyone you know who rode with).

OCexile 27 January 2025 at 23:52+ 496

so i’m gonna agree that The Wollongong Affair was mathieu “messing up” a big occasion in just an epic way. but APART from said debacle, i’ve never thought of him as a “choker” on the major days. yeah, he gooned up his food intake at the world’s the year in Yorkshire, but that was his very first year of WT level road racing. what else… his endo on the sidewalk on debut at de ronde? still came back for fourth in pretty amazing fashion. i can think of any real “blow-it” moments from his CX career. so, come on, misterMM, give matty a break. (actually, i just really wanna know what you ARE referring to, because you always have an actual answer.)

Mistermaumau 28 January 2025 at 01:26+ 3207

Hmmm, so you didn’t notice his dumb (not technically but being prepared for your event) crash at the Tokyo Olympics that gifted Pidcock about 1/3 of the reputation he got, or maybe you just forgot? You didn’t notice how he vanished from sight inexplicably during the Paris event? You don’t recall how close he got to actually messing up the RR in Glasgow, ok, that’s a different way of looking at his amazing win but also helps us forget he had another silly crash at that MTB WC. That’s starting to be quite a bit at top events outside cyclocross, is there something to it? And considering all those, I’d say of all of them the Wollongong one was the least imputable to him, most elite athletes would have freaked out in such a situation at that moment. Obviously he feels far more at home in cyclocross where things rarely go wrong that badly. I actually think the Olympics stress him more than the MTB rainbow jersey he says he wants, it’s probably the event/medal he’s most anxious to add, he seriously misjudged things twice and probably only has one more try so I’m putting one hand in the fire and already predicting he’ll enter 2 events at LA, to avoid the stress of leaving all his eggs in his last basket.

cxfan25 26 January 2025 at 20:37+ 7

Admire the decision having seen Mathieu's performances this weekend

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