He still had splashes of mud and crumbs of Bohemian earth on his face when Mathieu van der Poel came to the finish area for the interview. No visible joy, dry words – there stood an athlete who is used to winning and ticking off big titles that many colleagues spend their lives chasing in vain, one after the other, like on a to-do list. On Sunday morning, Van der Poel’s to-do list for the day included: sixth world championship title in cycling cross (internationally usually called cyclocross). Later in the day, the Dutchman was able to check the box. His winter campaign in this sometimes spectacular cycling discipline had come to the end he had hoped for, for the fourth time since 2020.
He once achieved his first World Cup victory in 2015 on a circuit in the small Czech town of Tabor. Now, if you will, a circle has come full circle for the now 29-year-old. What made the fan community fear that the multi-talented Van der Poel would abandon this discipline in the future. That the extremely confident start-finish victory in Tabor, ultimately 37 seconds ahead of his second-placed compatriot Joris Nieuwenhuis, could have been his (for the time being) last appearance on mud and grass, ramps and stairs. That the top athlete could cut off his cycling roots, which lie in cross country.
“That’s where my big goals lie”
Later, after his World Cup victory, which was controlled and risk-free, Van der Poel spoke in more detail. He was unable to allay the fans’ fear that the biggest name in the winter cycling scene would be lost. “Apart from the world title and the fun, I can’t win much in cyclocross anymore,” said Van der Poel. “My focus is increasingly shifting to the streets. That’s where my big goals lie.”
This spring, not many have achieved this before him, he will be competing at the “Monuments” Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix as defending champion. Of course he will be aiming for his third triumph at the Tour of Flanders. In the rainbow jersey of the current road world champion since his hussar ride at the title fights in Scotland last August. The high-flying Dutchman will take more note of the fact that he now has two rainbow jerseys from the current world’s best than celebrate it.
Full power for an hour
Van der Poel only rode a shortened cross season, in which he won 13 of the 14 races in which he started (now a total of 162 victories). But he took on these grueling, full-throttle events, usually lasting an hour, much more often than, for example, Wout van Aert (three-time cross country world champion) or Thomas Pidcock (once title holder). His long-term Belgian rival and the Brit, both of whom have also been extremely successful road racers, had skipped the World Championships in favor of more rigorous preparation for the road season.
Checked off: Van der Poel (right) is driving to the next Cross World Championship title. : Image: AFP
It cannot be ruled out that (and not only) the two of them really enjoyed watching competitor Van der Poel push his bike through the Bohemian mud at the beginning of February. How he exhausted himself in the endless stop and go of the winding courses – starting, braking, clicking off the pedals, shouldering the bike and continuing on foot when the mud was too bad or there were stairs to climb.
In any case, van der Poel has been in the mode of driving at full power for an hour for weeks, while the competition that stands in his way from March to October has long since been building up substance in training camps for the five to six hour stresses to come the classics.
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Cross-country racing, his old love, required “a lot of energy and demanded a lot from you,” said Van der Poel, whose father Adri was also a professional and whose grandfather was the former French cycling hero Raymond Poulidor. The good genes were given to him in his childhood bed, he has developed his mental strength to deal with the enormous expectations and to show top performances with an astonishing rate at the highlights of the season.
What probably keeps him on his cross bike during the winter rushes: writing history. He still needs a world title to catch up with Belgian Erik de Vlaeminck (seven). “Everyone is still talking about the record. “It’s something that people don’t forget,” said Van der Poel. “Those are the things that are important and concern me.”
