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 virtually actually moot with the Briton not committing to any ‘cross races this 12 months.
Even the ‘huge two’ will solely meet 4 instances this 12 months – 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 Precise Cross Loenhout in December and the Dendermonde and Benidorm World Cups in January.
It appears like the tip of an period. Will cyclocross ever be the identical once more? Who can cease Van der Poel from soloing away from the sphere and successful by minutes in nearly each race like he did final 12 months?
The decline for cyclocross started when Van Aert joined the WorldTour in 2018 and Van der Poel adopted the following 12 months. With street racing the way more profitable of the 2 sports activities, and each riders having success and future aspirations within the Spring Classics, they’ve reduce 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 right this moment they increase 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 12 months, 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 have the ability to repeat that in 2025 as he has been recovering from a critical knee damage 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 developing via the cyclocross ranks to exchange Van Aert and Van der Poel, too.
Within the absence of the 2 thus far 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 – haven’t got the identical street caché or star energy. Thibau Nys might 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 search out high-profile riders to exchange them within the males’s fields. However, the ladies’s races have supplied among the finest exhibits in recent times with the arrivals of Fem van Empel and Puck Pieterse.
However even girls like Marianne Vos and Shirin van Anrooij have decreased their ‘cross calendars to give attention to the street.
There could be hope for the longer term, nonetheless. UCI sport director Peter van den Abeele advised Wielerflits.nl final month that the UCI is contemplating permitting males’s and ladies’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 frightened about maintaining their place within the WorldTour, but it surely might 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 group as a part of their organisation.
Cyclocross wants this sort of innovation to have a future.
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