Has the cyclocross rivalry between Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, which stretches again greater than a decade to their junior years, lastly fizzled out?
Discussions of the ‘huge three’ – Van Aert, Van der Poel and Tom Pidcock – clashing within the 2024-2025 cyclocross season are nearly definitely moot with the Briton not committing to any ‘cross races this yr.
Even the ‘huge two’ will solely meet 4 instances this yr – Van Aert introduced a restricted calendar of six races for the ‘cross season that does not embody the World Championships, and he and Van der Poel will solely overlap within the Superprestige Mol and Actual Cross Loenhout in December and the Dendermonde and Benidorm World Cups in January.
It looks like the top of an period. Will cyclocross ever be the identical once more? Who can cease Van der Poel from soloing away from the sector and successful by minutes in nearly each race like he did final yr?
The decline for cyclocross started when Van Aert joined the WorldTour in 2018 and Van der Poel adopted the subsequent yr. With highway racing the way more profitable of the 2 sports activities, and each riders having success and future aspirations within the Spring Classics, they’ve minimize down on the variety of cyclocross occasions on their calendar annually.
It has been some time since we have had the kind of electrifying clashes between these two titans just like the one within the World Championships in 2016 the place the battle hinged on a bodily run-in between the 2, however even immediately they elevate the profile of cyclocross past what ‘cross specialists like Sven Nys and Niels Albert ever achieved.
With the arrival of Pidcock to the combo, the ‘huge three’ raised the status and curiosity within the sport even additional.
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Even with Van der Poel’s dominance final yr, the place he solely misplaced considered one of 14 races, Van Aert was nonetheless the one rider to beat the world champion within the Benidorm World Cup and of their seven head-to-head races, the Belgian was the one one to problem Van der Poel in 5 of them.
It is unlikely that Van Aert will be capable to repeat that in 2025 as he has been recovering from a critical knee harm suffered within the Vuelta a España whereas Van der Poel has been wholesome and in a position to put together for the season with out interruption.
There’s a noticeable lack of superstars arising by means of the cyclocross ranks to switch Van Aert and Van der Poel, too.
Within the absence of the 2 up to now this season, races have been extra unpredictable and a bit extra thrilling. Nevertheless, the highest riders – Eli Iserbyt, Michael Vanthourenhout and Lars van der Haar – do not have the identical highway caché or star energy. Thibau Nys may but emerge to fill the hole, however as of but he has been unable to match the meteoric ascents of the ‘huge three’.
Van Aert is 30 and Van der Poel will hit that mark in January, so time is operating out for cyclocross to seek out high-profile riders to switch them within the males’s fields. Alternatively, the ladies’s races have offered a number of the finest exhibits lately with the arrivals of Fem van Empel and Puck Pieterse.
However even ladies like Marianne Vos and Shirin van Anrooij have lowered their ‘cross calendars to deal with the highway.
There may be hope for the long run, nonetheless. UCI sport director Peter van den Abeele instructed Wielerflits.nl final month that the UCI is contemplating permitting males’s and girls’s groups to make use of UCI factors gained in non-road disciplines towards their UCI World Rating from 2026 on.
It won’t make a distinction to super-teams like Visma-Lease a Bike who aren’t anxious about preserving their place within the WorldTour, but it surely may create a welcome infusion of money and expertise from the WorldTour into cyclocross, which has been on the decline for the reason that rise of gravel over the previous 5 years. It could additionally reward Intermarché-Wanty, who’ve a cyclocross workforce as a part of their organisation.
Cyclocross wants this sort of innovation to have a future.
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