“I can only blame myself” - Thibau Nys misses golden chance to beat Van der Poel in Namur

Thibau Nys did not dress it up after the World Cup in Namur. He believed the chance to beat Mathieu van der Poel was there, and he believed he let it go.

“You have to take your chance and not complain, because it was my own mistake,” Nys said after the finish.

For Nys, the frustration was not just about second place. It was the sense that this specific race, on this specific course, in these specific conditions, offered an opening that will not always exist once Van der Poel is on the start line.

“This is very frustrating,” he said. “This is where you have to take your chances, on this course and in these conditions.”

Nys started the final lap with Van der Poel, Michael Vanthourenhout and Lars van der Haar, and he felt he was exactly where he needed to be. “I still had an explosion left in my legs and I was riding at the front, well positioned,” he said.

Then came the moment he immediately pointed to as decisive. “Then I made a small and stupid mistake and that cost me a lot of seconds,” Nys admitted. “I dropped back to fourth place and I still had power, but Mathieu had already flown…”

Only after that did Nys widen the lens to the bigger picture of what it means to miss an opportunity against a rider like Van der Poel.

He returned to the same conclusion. “But I did not take my chance,” Nys said. “That is a shame, but I can only blame myself.”

Earlier in the race, Nys had felt the situation developing in his favour, even with Van der Poel back in the mix. “I had the feeling that I was in control,” he explained. “With Mathieu back in the race there is a big factor of unpredictability, but during the race it felt like I was in control.”

There was also a note of encouragement in his assessment of his legs, given it was his first cyclocross after a short training period. “It took some getting used to doing a cross effort again, but there was power there, and when Mathieu went, I could stay on the wheel,” he said. “I wanted to produce another explosion in the finale, but I did not get to that point.”

Nys still leaves Namur as World Cup leader, but he left the course thinking about what got away, not what he kept.