World Cup - Eli Iserbyt starts as he finished off last season with victory in Antwerpen
Cyclocross
Eli Iserbyt has won the 2023-2024 World Cup and he began the new cup with a perfect ride. This Sunday, he won the World Cup Antwerpen with a superb solo win in the sandy and very technically challenging course.
The race had a ferocious battle for the top spots at first, seeing at the differences that were created early on in the women's race and the technical sand sectors that would inevitably create splits. Laurens Sweeck started off strong and pushed the race, matched by Eli Iserbyt before a few riders came back, Michael Vanthourenhout showing himself also quite confidently.
On the fourth lap Pauwels Sauzen - Bingoal played the team card once again and like yesterday in Kortrijk, a gap was created in Iserbyt's favour and it would never again be closed as there simply wasn't the ability to close down the gap in the chasing group. Sweeck eventually put on a chase but he wasn't able to close it down, he and Vanthourenhout eventually split from the rest of the field, with Thibau Nys and Lars van der Haar notably being dropped from the group.
Iserbyt tackled perfectly the technical sectors and many accelerations that the circuit required, and soared to the win on the first round of the World Cup, a perfect start to his attempt at the title defense. Laurens Sweeck rode to a strong second place whilst Michael Vanthourenhout completed the podium. Joran Wyseure surprised to fourth with Niels Vandeputte and Lars van der Haar behind.
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024