Van Aert & Van der Poel's extended cyclocross absence "a big middle finger to the UCI" according to Bart Wellens
Cyclocross
The cyclocross season is well underway with the likes of Eli Iserbyt, Thibau Nys and others putting in some star performances already this winter. When, where or even if the discipline's biggest names will make their appearance remains to be seen though.
“They will never be able to do many races. If they start in the weekend of Hulst, then you will quickly reach the championships. Especially when you know that most teams do an extra training camp in January," former cyclocross world champion Bart Wellens assesses of Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel's cyclocross uncertainty this winter to Wielerflits. "I think that is a bit of a shame, but they are always welcome in our sport. We also need them to some extent.”
“By the way, if they are going to do so little cyclo-cross – or say: Van der Poel only does the World Championships – then he is simply doing the UCI a disservice," the 2003 and 2004 world champion continues. "They have made the World Cup so compact especially for those two. If someone like Van der Poel ignores a large part of those cyclocrosses, then that is a big middle finger to the UCI."
"That is his full right, and it is impressive that you are that top rider who can even say: I am not going to do cyclocross this year. Then I fully support that. But they have now focused the entire season on them. If they then say: 'we are not coming', then you have to rely on your new top riders like Thibau Nys. And they have now put them at a disadvantage with the new World Cup calendar," Wellens adds. "They are already tired at the start of the World Championships, and even fresh it would have been difficult to beat men like Van der Poel or Van Aert in that championship.”
Mathieu van der Poel:
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) October 6, 2024
6x 🌈 CX World Champion
1x 🌈 Road World Champion
1x 🌈 Gravel World Champion
WHAT A RIDER. ❤️
📷: swpix_cycling pic.twitter.com/uLFyLQXIui
Wout still recovering from injuries? Might be more of a factor than any attempted middle finger to the UCI?
Plus MVDP now having basically done 4 seasons in 2 years might warrant a slightly longer rest than usual, although even then his will STILL be shorter than 98% of all other pro cyclists in any field.
Times have changed, Bart Wellens, and it's only natural and makes total sense that riders like Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel's primary focus is on their road careers. It has absolutely nothing to do with doing a 'disservice' to the UCI.
Just in
Play for FREE! Fantasy Paris-Roubaix
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- of course it’s predictable. a dad is proud of his son. nothing else matters, and his dad was a celebrated rider in his own right. maybe if people respected the human side of this story, and these people, we would see fewer bidons thrown. lastly as a dad, I appreciate this. a dad should have be given grief for showing pride and love for his child. we need more dads and examples like Adriemij14-04-2025
- i willfully CHOOSE to believe in your theory about greatness being sharpened and driven by greatness, because in my ideal world that’s how i’d wish it to be. in this case, with mathieu in particular, i think the presence of first wout then tadej absolutely drives and consumes him to some degree. he’s a guy who admittedly gets BORED. and when mathieu gets bored he just goes and does something else. he’s very clear about the fact there are a BUNCH of things he just doesn’t really care about, and i think anyone who follows him has a sense that MVDP is here for a GOOD TIME, not a LONG TIME. my hope is that tadej’s greatness will keep mathieu focused and hungry. very sadly, wout no longer fills that role. he may again and i hope he does, but their career trajectories are going in different directions and have been for a few years now. i will be extremely sad for the truly SPECTACULAR van aert if his line MSR win is the only monument trophy on his mantle. at very least i want ONE roubaix cobblestone sitting next to it. he deserves to tell the story when the grandkids ask “why is there a big rock sitting up there, papa?”OCexile14-04-2025
- Why? He is being too hard on himself. No sane person will blame him if he stopped there and then.
KerisVroom14-04-2025 - You can find a quick explantion by searching for "finish line camera howtown". The camera only captures the vertical line. The photo that we see is a composite of vertical lines.KerisVroom14-04-2025
- Let us not go off the deep end for a start it us not attempted murder. At most common assault. Country dependent. Yes horrible to see and ob not a real fan of the sport or just a VDP hater. This has been going on for years look at Froome in the TDF and other sports such as football. That is soccer to the North Americans. Let the police do there job and hope the offender gets what is coming to him or even her.paultryan200214-04-2025
- Sure but talk about predictable comments, do we really need those (although this time it was more rambling)? Don’t love the media running after him to hear about it each time though. Adrie isn’t even that well informed about his son’s work, can’t they go interview people who have more interesting comments to provide like maybe his mechanic or masseur or nutritionist or driver,oh yes, they’re probably bound by nda’s, which is why no-one tells Adrie anything of importance, didn’t even know his son was sick before Flanders so some of his comments there turned out pointless.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- I think with Tadej it’s often a case of his mind’s will being stronger than his racing intelligence, he’s lucky to be strong enough to recover from potential mistakes so knows he never has to worry too much about going past his natural limit but under pressure he makes more misjudgment than the average elite pro. I think Mohorič knows that about him too and possibly saved him from himself.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Thanks, strange, I would have thought with digital resolution and light performance these days, you’d see crystal clear high res images like you may have seen if you saw the close up of WVA knee wounds pic taken in-race as he zoomed by. Do you by any chance know what’s special about photo finish tech that leads to this?Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- Not to forget how their star rider is willing to play domestique for sprint stages, a few ladies could learn a lot from this. I was thinking, if either of Tadej or MVDP didn’t exist, the other could have reached Merckx monument level but then again, would they have the same motivation? Is it a coincidence they both have so many already and that the only other two who had more also rode concurrently? The one guy who pays the price of it is WVA who may come away empty handed, the best rider to never win a monument is surely worth an article.Mistermaumau14-04-2025
- So good it never happened, this team with MVDP is one of the reasons cycling hasn’t gone to shyt too much yet, I respect Tadej but I don’t think he’s even given much thought to the who and why of financing in sport and how naïve athletes just get used as little pawns in a bigger game.Mistermaumau14-04-2025