Like a rocket - Mathieu van der Poel easily wins Zonhoven World Cup with attack on lap 1

The same way he ended last season, he started this one. In his first race since becoming Cyclocross World Champion once again, Mathieu van der Poel very comfortably won his return race at the World Cup Zonhoven in the sand.

It was Toon Aerts who took the holeshot but the story of how the race was won was very short. Van der Poel started in the third row but in the matter of one minute he got himself in the head of the race, and created a gap right away in Zonhoven's famous downhill sand section. He immediately moved clear of the rest of the field with no-one even having a response to the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider.

When it comes to the fight for the win, it ended there. Van der Poel made no mistakes, and in his first cross of the winter he took a spotless win with well over a minute over Thibau Nys who was the strongest out of the rest. He and Pim Ronhaar moved off the front of the chasing group in the first laps and the European Champion showed his best legs in weeks to finish second, although around a minute and a half behind the World Champion.

In the fight for third place there were many changes and a tight battle behind, eventually it was Joran Wyseure who closed it out who overtook Toon Aerts in the final minutes of the race to take another impressive result. Aerts closed the gap slightly on Michael Vanthourenhout who had a difficult day (and weekend), losing some of his advantage in the fight for the world cup.