Thomas van den Spiegel: "Cyclocross in the current format can also exist without the big three"

Cyclocross naturally takes over the headlines throughout the winter as the road cycling peloton rests and begins preparing for a long season, and one of the key figures in the discipline, Thomas van den Spiegel, argues that the sport is having a big resurgence in terms of popularity.

"There has been a resurgence in cyclocross this year in general. You feel that after covid there is a lot of enthusiasm to come back to cyclocross," Flanders Classics and World Cup organizer Thomas van den Spiegel told Sporza. "If the big three start, then that makes a difference in ticket sales, but you shouldn't overestimate it either."

Although the World Cup has been the target of criticism over it's large amount of races and plenty changes of location, the strategy is part of van den Spiegel's plans to have cyclocross in the audience's eyes and gather new fans. In the middle of the race-heavy Christmas block, he has praised the amount of people that have travelled to races to be part of the spectacle.

"This is the period of the cross, people have nothing else to do. It's about 10 to 20 percent tickets extra, but no more than that. People love cyclocross and also like to come to the cross," he argued.

It is said that there were somewhere between 10.000 and 15.000 people present in the Gavere World Cup course, in which the crowd's roars were evident: "That must be a record for Gavere in recent years, although it also has to do with the new date. I think that Diegem and Loenhout will pass there this week."

Some of that could be due to the expected battle between World Champion Tom Pidcock, and the two figures of the disciplines Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. However, van den Spiegel is confident that even without it's main stars, the numbers would be similar. "I think cyclocross in the current format can also exist without the big three. The attractiveness mainly has to do with how competitive a race is," he argues.

"It is good that the level of the riders is close to each other, because excitement sells. Unpredictability makes good luck. At the moment it is great that the big three still like to come to the cross."

"In the future I think we have to go to a shorter and more concentrated season. But for that there will still be a lot of water to swim through," he concluded. With today's race in Diegem, the riders will have their third consecutive day of racing. The Exact Cross Loenhout, X2O Trofee Baal, Herentals and Koksijde, the Superprestige Gullegem and Zonhoven World Cup will fill the calendars all the way up into the 8th of January, before a much deserved calmer week.