Mathieu van der Poel won his fifth cyclocross of this season on Sunday. He was the first to cross the finish line at the World Cup Cross in Besançon, France.
Van der Poel was also not bothered by his competition during this cyclocross. The Alpecin-Deceuninck world champion quickly pulled away from Toon Aerts in the World Cup race and ultimately finished twenty seconds ahead of the Belgian.
The 29-year-old Dutchman also won his previous four cyclo-cross races convincingly.
Rival Van Aert ill
Van der Poel did not have to compete against rival Wout van Aert in his first games, who started his cyclo-cross season later and also became ill. The Belgian rode his first cross on Friday in Loenhout, resulting in fourth place. Van der Poel won with a lead of fourteen seconds over the Belgians Thibau Nys and Laurens Sweeck.
At the end of the first round in Besançon, Van der Poel was still riding with Aerts, but then the Dutchman drove away. Aerts soon lost sight of Van der Poel and then saw that the world champion would not let him return. Niels Vandeputte finished third, more than half a minute behind Van der Poel.
“The bends were dangerous.”
“We were given a real cross course in Besançon. I mainly focused on not making mistakes and I actually succeeded well. Especially on a circuit like today, I stayed out of trouble fairly well,” said Van der Poel . “It’s easiest to drive around here if you can choose your own lines. The bends were also dangerous. I always made a different choice on each passage to approach those bends, but that sometimes turned out not to be a good decision.”
Dense fog
The trip to Besançon did not go completely smoothly for Van der Poel. Due to the dense fog, he was unable to land his private jet on Sunday and the plane had to divert to Dole-Jura airport.
Van der Poel will not start in the evening cross of Diegem on Monday, but will be hunting for his sixth consecutive victory this season on New Year’s Day, during the GP Sven Nys. “I’m doing a long training tomorrow. I’m going to take some rest on Tuesday and a new cross is waiting for me on Wednesday.”