Disaster for Laurens Sweeck - World Cup leader suffers serious injury and paves way for Mathieu van der Poel victory

The Azencross Loenhout has delivered another Mathieu van der Poel victory but the main story of the day was the bad luck his rivals have suffered. Whilst Wout van Aert's race was ruined by multiple punctures, Laurens Sweeck has crashed and suffered season-ending injuries.

The race saw Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert getting a gap after several laps of racing, only for van Aert to then get a puncture and lose a substantial amount of time. Later on, whilst fighting for second place, he would puncture again and be left out of contention for a strong result in the race. Van der Poel took a comfortable win, followed by Niels Vandeputte and Joris Nieuwenhuis.

The race lacked many big figures, due to the packed schedule of the Christmas block, but at the start line was also Laurens Sweeck, leader of the World Cup. The Belgian rider did not look to be on his best day, but was instead chasing back on the main group of contenders throughout the first laps of the race.

He then disappeared, and it was understood that he had crashed out. However what came as disastrous news were the consequences of the crash, which effectively end his cyclocross season abruptly and in a race where he didn't have a particular ambition - Sweeck was not in contention for the X2O Trofee anymore.

The diagnosis is a severe shoulder dislocation: "Examination revealed that he suffered a severe acromioclavicular luxation. Laurens will undergo surgery tomorrow by Doctor Tom Claes in Herentals. Due to the injury, his season will unfortunately end prematurely. Naturally, this is extremely unfortunate for the current leader in the World Cup standings. Crelan-Corendon wishes him a speedy recovery and successful rehabilitation," the team stated. 

Sweeck is leading the World Cup with 186 points, followed by Thibau Nys who has 183 but has already skipped two races. In fourth place is Mathieu van der Poel with 160, who is scheduled to race all four remaining events. Sweeck looked to be his main competitors, but with this update, it seems very unlikely that anyone will be able to prevent van der Poel from taking the victory in the competition.