"We lack that top striker in some categories, in particular in female categories" - Belgium needs to recover from unsettling CX World Championships without a gold medal
Cyclocross
The Cyclocross World Championships came to a successful wrap with Mathieu van der Poel's record-equalling seventh world title. Behind, Wout Van Aert rode just as impressive of a race, however the 40-second jet lag from the start didn't allow him to ever come close to winning. How did the Belgian cyclocross stand in comparison with the rest of the world in other categories? Rather poorly is the conclusion of Belgian experts.
"In his case, I think it is better that he comes in at 40 seconds than at 3 seconds. That would have been more painful," assumes Paul Herygers in the post-championships analysis on Sporza. He is of the opinion that Van Aert's poor starting position destroyed what could've been an entertaining battle for cyclocross title: "Row 4 was too far, he couldn't get out of there. For the rest, he rode just as fast as Van der Poel."
On the other hand he liked the performance of Thibau Nys, who completed the podium: "If you've become European and Belgian champion, then this bronze World Championships medal is the icing on the cake. Nys graduated from the cyclocross university today." But is he going to challenge Van der Poel for rainbow stripes any time soon? Probably no.
"Another observation is that while we are going home with 4 World Championship medals, there is not a single gold medal among them," Ruben Van Gucht points out. And when he takes a look at Belgium's chances in years to come, there's not much to hope for either. "The chance that we will win a world title next year is also not that great. This will not be solved in 1 year."
Ultimately, it was only the U23 and elite men who were able to bring home silver and bronze medals in both categories, beaten to a pulp by their Dutch opponents (Tibor del Grosso in under-23 and Mathieu van der Poel in Elite). In women categories, only the retiring Sanne Cant was able to even enter the top-10 of the result sheet. And among juniors, there was no Belgian jersey anywhere in sight with Sanne Laurijssen crossing the line all the way back in 19th.
Van Gucht would love to see Belgium competitive again in youth categories too: "We lack that top striker in some categories. We do not have Del Grosso (in the U23s) or Agostinacchio (in the juniors) riding around among the Belgians. As Belgium we must try to find the weapons to fight with in those categories. That young guy in the juniors (Mats Vanden Eynde), who fought for a long time and came 5th, is the future for us," he notes.
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- I saw the ending, the riders were all over the place trying to move up. It was only a matter of time till somebody crashed.abstractengineer27-03-2025
- My issue is that this site proactively solicits the commentary of one disgraced doper after another. It's like they can't find anyone who didn't leave the sport under a cloud of shame. I think I'm done with this site.critguy26-03-2025
- The finale of this race was an absolute mess, and the last crash that took out 1/2 of the field was caused when a double width road very suddenly funneled into a single lane, and riders had nowhere to go. I find it amazing how some of these courses get approved in the first place. So much for the UCI's campaign for improved rider safety, because if they actually cared, the organizers wouldn't have been allowed to run the finale on this parcours.
santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- We'll see what happens this year, hopefully he finds himself a little stronger.awp26-03-2025
- awp, the way and races he races, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs that many or specific race days before the Tour. His program isn’t very different from other years.Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- No, he just realises he’s not a one-day racer so why should he force himself?Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- Sacrificing E3 and G-W that were planned seems like he was hedging his options and only decided to do it after not winning MSR. Would he have planned to do all 5 and if so why hold back on announcing P-R if it wasn’t conditional? Guess people will get active with predictions now :-).Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- The MTB World title - there is no such thing. However, there are World titles in XCC, XCO, XCM, XCE, Enduro, Downhill......... He's after the World title in XCO, but could probably win the XCC title too, as his record is still better than anybody else, and he hasn't ridden an XCC World Cup since May 2021. Ten wins from twelve races says it all..... However, the XCO course is Crans-Montana is technical - he will surely need plenty of time back on the MTB, both training, and racing, otherwise it's going to be another doomed ambition.wipperman9526-03-2025