"He can be beaten by the likes of Eli Iserbyt and Thibau Nys" - Belgian coach doesn't expect much from Wout van Aert's return to cyclocross
Cyclocross
Wout van Aert had a road season with more downs than ups and after being forced to abandon the Vuelta due to a crash, he's called it a season. Thus the Belgian is currently enjoying some vacation, although with the cyclocross season approaching, his legs will be itching to get back onto the bike and get his face covered in mud.
The National team coach Sven Nys has many strong cards to play in the biggest races, but the presence of three time World Champion (2016-2018) is always more than welcome. But considering all the bruises the Visma | Lease a Bike rider carries from road, Nys is cautious about making any ambitious claims.
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"Wout already has some scratches on the bodywork in the meantime. We're talking about horror crashes. You take those with you, physically and mentally. He's not getting any faster either. When you see Wout now, he looks exactly like Ivan Drago, the Russian that Sylvester Stallone boxes against. Such an athlete," Nys says in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad.
Nys seems to be cautious with his expectations for the Belgian, and so is former rival Bart Wellens. "Last year Van Aert was the best on his specific courses. But cross-technically he made a lot of mistakes," he noted.
Sven Nys also thinks that Van Aert will certainly not be unbeatable when he returns. "Against men in shape – like Eli Iserbyt and Thibau Nys – he can be beaten. The big question is: with what intention does he come to cross?"
"Last year it was all about the spring. You could see that it was building up. The Wout of two years ago was a different level. At that top level, nobody can beat him in the cross, not even the best Thibau or Eli," Wellens wants to give him the necessary compliments.
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
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- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024