“I was shocked when I heard it, but Mathieu has nothing left to win in cyclocross” – Wout van Aert sympathises with Van der Poel retirement rumours

Wout van Aert may have finished second behind Mathieu van der Poel once again in Hofstade, but it was not the result that lingered afterwards. Instead, it was Van Aert’s reaction to growing speculation around Van der Poel’s future in cyclocross that captured the mood of a field already coming to terms with an uncomfortable reality.

“I was shocked when I heard it,” Van Aert admitted in quotes collected by HLN when asked about rumours that Van der Poel could soon step away from cyclocross.

“But I do understand him. After this winter, Mathieu has nothing left to win in cyclocross. Even I sometimes already have that feeling, and with him it’s on a completely different level.”

Those words carried weight not because they were dramatic, but because they were delivered calmly, from the one rider who has spent a decade trying to push Van der Poel to his limits. They came after another race in which that gap felt less like a sporting challenge and more like a fixed constant.

Even on his third cyclocross in three days, Van der Poel once again rode clear with apparent ease at the X2O Trofee in Hofstade. Only Thibau Nys was able to follow briefly before choosing self preservation over persistence. “Mathieu rode more easily through the sand than I did and his pace between the sand sections was also too high,” Nys said. “I let him go just in time by shifting down two gears, otherwise I wouldn’t even have finished in the top ten.”

Van der Poel himself framed the performance not as a peak, but as progress. “This was my best cross so far, both technically and physically. I feel myself improving,” he said, a statement that only deepened the sense of inevitability elsewhere in the paddock.

For Van Aert, the race quickly became a solitary exercise in damage limitation. “I would have preferred to try to go with Mathieu for a while, like Thibau did, because then you at least feel like you were part of the race,” he explained. “Now I could only see how I lost more time lap after lap.”

His conclusion was unambiguous. “There’s very little you can do about Mathieu when he rides like this. I could see from Thibau that he was not to be held. He’s riding at least as strongly as in recent years.”

Even external factors offered little reassurance. While better weather can sometimes compress cyclocross races, Van Aert suggested it may instead widen the gap this winter. “Nice weather normally helps to keep things closer together, but I think it will actually play more in Mathieu’s favour than mine.”

The undertone running through Hofstade was therefore not frustration, but acceptance. Riders spoke less about solutions and more about survival, less about beating Van der Poel and more about managing the margins behind him. When even the sport’s second dominant figure is openly discussing endpoints rather than breakthroughs, the existential dread becomes hard to ignore.

For now, Van der Poel continues to ride on, apparently untroubled, while those around him quietly adjust their expectations. In Hofstade, it felt less like a winter unfolding and more like one already being endured.