Cyclo-Cross World Cup 2023 – 07 – HULST [FULL RACE]

November 27, 2022

Cyclo-Cross World Cup 2023 – HULST

The UCI World Cup series is the pinnacle of the cyclocross season. The series often attracts the world’s best cyclocross racers and includes some of the most prestigious races on the calendar. This series will feature 14 rounds this season, with races held across Europe and the US as the UCI attempts to broaden the sport’s reach and bring cyclocross to a global audience. The UCI CX World Cup uses a points system to decide the rankings, with the first 25 riders to cross the finishing line scoring points. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place score 40, 30, 25, 22 and 21 points respectively, with riders then scoring one less point for every position they finish further down the field. These points then go towards the UCI CX World Cup rankings, with the rider who has accumulated the most points by the end of the series taking the overall victory. During the series, the leader in the rankings after each round will receive a white jersey with red accents to wear at the next race.

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) made a winning return to cyclocross with a dominant victory at the Hulst World Cup. After starting down the grid, Van der Poel swiftly recouped the ground and then proceeded to draw away from world champion Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) with a little under two laps remaining to build up a decisive lead.

Pidcock, winner in of the X20 Trofee Kortrijk on Saturday, still had Van der Poel just about in his sights when he took the bell, but the Briton’s race was ended by a broken rim on the final lap, and he was denied the podium place his efforts deserved.

Pidockc’s misfortune allowed Laurens Sweeck (Crelan-Fristads) to take second place at 15 seconds, with Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen Bingoal) coming home third at 22 seconds.

Van der Poel’s superiority brooked no argument, however. The Dutchman hadn’t lined up in a cyclocross race since he was forced out of Superprestige Heusden-Zolder last Christmas with a back injury, but his raw strength was more than enough to compensate for any technical rustiness here.

“On the technical side, I made a lot of mistakes but I think that’s normal,” Van der Poel said. “For me in cyclocross it’s been a really long time so I’m just really happy to be back. It feels pretty good, it’s been a long while since I’ve won a cyclocross race.

“Last year was not a good season. I can’t even call it a season, I did one and a half cyclocross races due to the back issue. Like I said, I felt pretty good, I had a good preparation coming towards Hulst. I’m really happy with the shape.”

That very lack of cyclocross action last winter meant that Van der Poel was compelled to start far from the front of the grid for a race that had an unusually early start to avoid a clash with Belgium’s match against Morocco in the FIFA World Cup, but he quickly worked his way through the field to give himself a fighting chance of taking the spoils at day’s end.

When Lars van der Haar led the race through the start-finish area at the end of lap one, Van der Poel was already among the front runners, even though a crash briefly saw him slip back. Two laps in, Pidcock had found his rhythm as he led Sweeck across the line, with Van der Poel now in a group at 17 seconds.

That was the signal for Van der Poel to begin his forcing. Though uneasy – by his own exalted standards of bike handling, of course – on some of the muddier, technical sections, Van der Poel was in a class of his own on the sections that called for pure power, and he produced the fastest lap of the day to close the gap to Pidcock et al at the head of the race.

After three laps, Van der Poel was in front with Pidcock and Sweeck and warming to his task. Like Marco Pantani on Alpe d’Huez, Van der Poel seemed to be disrobing in preparation for an attack, first dispensing with his glasses and then with his gloves. The decisive onslaught came on the fourth lap, when he capitalised on a slight misstep from Pidcock to open a lead.

Unlike Van der Poel, Pidcock had raced in Kortrijk on Saturday and perhaps that residual fatige was a factor. The world champion limited his deficit to five seconds on lap four but the gap would more than double on the following lap as Van der Poel slowly turned the screw.

Van der Poel had his second spill of the day on the penultimate lap, which gave Pidcock a fighting chance of closing the gap, but when the Dutchman took the bell still with 12 seconds in hand, it seemed that only a real mishap could deny him.

Instead, the misfortune befell Pidcock, who suffered a broken rear wheel on the last lap, just after he had ridden past the pits. The timing of the incident ended his race, leaving Sweeck – the new World Cup leader – come through for second place ahead of Iserbyt, while Van der Haar took fourth at 30 seconds and Joris Nieuwenhuis fifth at 49 seconds.

They were the only men to finish within a minute of the rampant Van der Poel, with damage limitation the order of the day. “When I saw Mathieu passing me in the first lap, I thought he was going to ride away with one minute, so I’m glad with how I performed,” Iserbyt admitted.

Van der Poel’s absence from the first half of the World Cup means he won’t be a contender for the overall title, but his first cyclocross appearance of the season suggested his readiness to try to reclaim the world title in Hoogerheide in February. In the here and now, Van der Poel races the Boom Superprestige and the Antwerp World Cup next weekend, with the latter race also serving as eternal rival Wout van Aert’s seasonal debut.

“There’s still some work to do to be really at my top level but I can only be really happy with today,” Van der Poel said. “I need a few cyclocross races to get back to it. My shape is really good, I had a good preparation in Spain, but I need some more specific training on the cross bike. But I hope in the December period to be on my top level.”

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