Van der Poel was unable to continue his excellent start to the cyclocross season (win in Hulst). After a lap and a half, the race was actually over. Van der Poel crashed on a cobbled section, taking Pidcock with him in his fall; they had gotten ahead of the rest.
Where the Dutchman lay down due to a sore knee, the Brit jumped back on his bike at lightning speed to continue the race and cross the line first for Lars van der Haar, who reached the same number of points as the Belgian leader in the standings Laurens Sweenck, and Eli Iserbyt.
Van der Poel eventually faced a three-minute deficit on Pidcock, but still had good legs in Boom. He started a race to catch up and eventually finished thirteenth. That did not suit his goal: in addition to winning, he would prefer to sit in front of the television as soon as possible to watch the Dutch national team play in the eighth finals of the World Cup in Qatar, he said at Eurosport.
Tomorrow Van der Poel will be back in action at the World Cup in Antwerp. Then he will compete with Wout van Aert, who was missing in Boom, for the first time.