Wout van Aert no longer overcomes early setback: strong Tom Pidcock wins | cycling

Also a constantly urging Eli Iserbyt was no more. Iserbyt takes the World Cup with this second place.

A different course in Hulst compared to last season. Van Aert could never win here in Zeeland. In five crosses Mathieu van der Poel (who is still not there) won here four times, current leader in the World Cup classification Iserbyt won that one other time. And the Belgian was able to mathematically secure his title today. So much at stake.

And Iserbyt soon had one less competitor, because none other than Van Aert had chain problems after less than two minutes. As a result, the Belgian champion fell back to 40th position.

While van Aert was in the back by beating, they did the same in front of course. Home rider Lars van der Haar took the lead. Iserbyt, Toon Vandebosch, Quinten Hermans, Pidcock and Michael Vanthourenhout followed.

In the third round, Pidcock took the helm and the Briton accelerated the pace. Only Iserbyt was able to follow (with difficulty sometimes), Van der Haar had to leave a gap in third, just like the others behind the Dutchman.

Pidcock tried to get rid of the Belgian and seemed to succeed in doing so slowly, but Iserbyt is cut from particularly tough cloth. His deficit remained with four laps to go within four seconds.

Those four seconds turned into eight at the start of the final lap. But Iserbyt still didn’t want to know about squatting. In the background, Van Aert had meanwhile settled in fourth position at 1.13 from Pidcock.

Pidcock didn’t flinch anymore and crossed the line solo in Hulst. Iserbyt takes the World Cup with his second place at 12 seconds from the Briton.