Magnificent Mathieu van der Poel eases to World Cup Hoogerheide win; Michael Vanthourenhout secures overall World Cup victory
Cyclocross
Mathieu van der Poel has yet again proven unmatched, dominating on his father's course at World Cup Hoogerheide. Overall though, Michael Vanthourenhout is the rider with arguably the most to celebrate securing a first World Cup standings win in his career.
All eyes were on Van der Poel at the startline, and it didn't take long for the world champion to launch clear of the rest of the pack, finishing the first lap already 19 seconds ahead. It even seemed like the rest of the riders had already given up hopes of victory as they slowed right down to look at each other, waiting for someone to lead the chase of Van der Poel. Over the next couple of laps, that man proved to be World Cup leader Michael Vanthourenhout, who dropped the rest of the chasers to go solo into the gap between Van der Poel and the pack.
At the start of lap 4, Van der Poel had increased his lead over Vanthourenhout to 49 seconds, with the fight for third now over a minute and a half down on the rampant world champion. Victory was easily in the bag for the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader, but Van der Poel was clearly looking to send a pre-World Championship message to all the rest of the riders, not easing up at all towards the finale. Impressively, Vanthourenhout was also clearly best of the rest. In the fight for 3rd though, things were much tighter. With two laps to go though, Lars van der Haar began to emerge from the chase, much to the delight of the Dutch crowd in attendance in Hoogerheide. As it turned out, that's how things finished too. Van der Poel a dominant winner, Vanthourenhout in second and Van der Haar completing the podium and ensuring two Dutchmen in the top three, in third place.
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