"If you ignore the World Championship because of your spring campaign on the road, why are you racing cross in the winter?" - Lars Boom blasts Pidcock's decision to skip World Championship defence

After it was announced that Tom Pidcock will not be defending his Cyclocross World Championship title in Hoogerheide at the beginning of February, a number of former champions have spoken out against the decision.

2008 World Champion, Lars Boom questioned Pidcock's choice to priotise the spring classics in an interview with Wielerflits. "A crosser like Tom Pidcock belongs at the World Championship," Boom says. "It would have been very nice if he had been there. If you ignore the World Cup because of your spring campaign on the road, why are you racing cross in the winter as a road racer?"

In the same interview, Richard Groenendaal and Erwin Vervecken both shared their thoughts. "Is he hesitating because he does not want to be beaten directly by those men and thus have to give up his title?" Groenendaal questions. "Pidcock is part of it as the outgoing world champion. I think you should take up the gauntlet."

Whilst Vervecken tries to play devil's advocate. "To win that World Cup… Of the big three ( Mathieu van der Poel , Wout van Aert and Pidcock, ed.) On paper, he has the fewest chances of winning there in Hoogerheide," he says. "Wout is also the defending champion at the Belgian championship, but he also skips that.”

As Boom theories, could cyclocross's big three soon become a duo as Pidcock focuses more and more on his burgeoning road career? "Olympic mountain biking champion, a Tour de France ride on Alpe d'Huez… He has some very nice outliers. But on some courses in the cross Tom can't compete yet. Sometimes he does, but then he makes mistakes – like in that last mud strip in Diegem. That is the difference."