Excellent Eli Iserbyt triumphs at Urban Cross Kortrijk after Pauwels Sauzen - Bingoal tactical masterclass
Cyclocross
Eli Iserbyt has taken victory at Urban Cross Kortrijk 2024 this Saturday afternoon, making a statement before Sunday's World Cup opener in Antwerp.
After the dominant display from Fem van Empel in the women's race, things were a lot more closely fought over the opening laps of the men's. Eli Iserbyt led through the end of lap 1 without making any real differences, before teammate Michael Vanthourenhout took over and Iserbyt adopted his typical position at the head of the chase group, hoping to allow his teammate to sneakily build up a gap.
After the likes of Niels Vandeputte wised up and covered the Vanthourenhout move, Iserbyt immediately countered himself. Sadly for the Belgian national champion, just as he looked set to force a gap himself, the pushed a little too hard and slid out, right in front of the pits, nullifying the threat of his acceleration.
On lap 5, it was then Vanthourenhout's turn to go on the attack again and this time, under 23 world champion Jente Michels was the man attempting to lead the chase. The Pauwels Sauzen - Bingoal duo continued to play the team tactics to perfection as immediately following Vanthourenhout's catch, Iserbyt went again, clocking the new fastest lap of the race to surge clear.
Starting the penultimate lap, Iserbyt's advantage had grown to 20 seconds over the group of Michels, Vanthourenhout, Vandeputte and Gerben Kuypers. Managing the final two laps without incident, victory was confirmed for Iserbyt, with Vandeputte and Vanthourenhout taking second and third respectively.
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024