Eli Iserbyt 🥇 takes his first win of the season after a battle royale with Lars van der Haar 🥈 Joris Nieuwenhuis takes bronze 🥉 @IserbytEli | @UCI_CX | #CXWorldCup
Lars van der Haar: "I really wanted to win today. I have tried everything"
CyclocrossSunday, 19 November 2023 at 19:00
Lars van der Haar won the World Cup in Maasmechelen and today he looked set for a second big win this season. However he lacked the power in the final laps in Troyes and had to settle behind Eli Iserbyt.
“I had good legs, but I was defeated today. I really wanted to win today. I have tried everything," the Dutchman said in a post-race interview. "I had some trouble getting to the front on my own so early, I had trouble finding the right pace. Since I didn't have anyone with me, I couldn't see what might have been better lines. You just did what you thought was best.”
Van der Haar attacked solo off the front in the first lap and got a strong gap. Having a big engine, it seemed as if to catch him would be impossible, even when Eli Iserbyt set off chasing him. That wasn't the case however, as a few laps later the bridge was made. And then a mistake opened the winning gap: “Then I made one small mistake. I thought: I'll quickly switch bikes and then focus on Eli."
"I saw that he took one or two lines much better than me. As a result, he immediately put a lot of pressure on me. I had to adjust my tactics and also take those lines. That puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. I couldn't accelerate anymore and he won," van der Haar, who was disappointed with the loss - Baloise - Trek Lions' first at the World Cup this season. "He beat me clear and fair. That hurts."
Read also
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- I think this was because there were junior women in the race. If a race has junior women am pretty sure it has to be less than 45 minutes. I believe a rule is coming in for next season that will fine organisers that don't put on a junior women's race a fine equivalent to the prize money. So fingers crossed we should see more longer elite and junior women's races from next season.NorrisHippocampe18-11-2024
- Of course he CAN. Big salary in cycling is not when you win but when they talk about you (and your team / sponsors). For every news about Jonas, MVdP or Wout there are 10 times more(!) news about Pidcock (like everyday for last 2 months?). Since cycling is advertising sport not competitive sport (in terms of from money comes from) Pidcock is winner and GOAT - change my mind. ;-)averagecyclist18-11-2024
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024 - So he read the comments here probably :-)DareDevil17-11-2024
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024