"Van Aert and Van der Poel have been essentially saying 'screw you' to the UCI" - Cyclocross legend Bart Wellens

Starting fees in cyclocross are very high and often are what keeps the top pros running with a high pay throughout the year. Bart Wellens, former World Champion and legend of the discipline, questions whether it's worth it for the riders to take up a road calendar during the summer whilst also accusing the UCI of poor calendar management, involving Mathieu van der Poel and Bart Wellens in his argument.

“You sometimes hear in the corridors that it's only about those two, but that's your fault as media. The only thing that bothers me is that the UCI tailors the World Cup calendar to their program and crams all the races into December and January as much as possible," Wellens said in words to Het Nieuwsblad. "This makes it impossible for riders who race full seasons to combine the three classifications.”

Ultimately it is impossible for the likes of van der Poel and van Aert to fight for these classifications unless they have a program, at the bare minimum, throughout the whole of November, December and January. However due to their ambitions on the road - and van der Poels' MTB dreams as well - it has simply become impossible over the few years, and they are ultimately smaller goals than those they have o the roadd.

"The pure cyclocross rider Michael Vanthourenhout won the World Cup classification last season. For two years now, Van Aert and Van der Poel have been essentially saying 'fuck you' to the UCI, but they persist in their anger."

Reportedly, the likes of van der Poel and van Aert can earn up to €20.000 per race as a starting fee, which at the end of a dozen races makes for an already very significant pay. Meanwhile the likes of Michael Vanthourenhout, Eli Iserbyt and Thibau Nys ordinarily can go up to €5000 whilst the numbers lowers depending on the riders' attractiveness and UCI rankings.

Wellens questions on whether it is worth it for many riders to split their ambitions between cyclocross and the road when they could instead just fully focus on cyclocross, benefitting perhaps financially but also performance-wise in the discipline. "The leaders certainly do. But to earn what, say, Laurens Sweeck earns, you really have to be a very valuable domestique on the road."

"I know cyclocross riders who have never won a race, but now receive more starting pay than I did when I was world champion," he argues. "I negotiated with riders to join the team. Those salaries are astonishing."