NOS Cycling••Amended
Van der Poel also reigns supreme in the Gravere World Cup Cross, ahead of Nys and Del Grosso
Mathieu van der Poel and Lucinda Brand won the Gavere World Cup Cross. On an unusually dry course, both world champion Van der Poel and Brand arrived solo. Just like the last World Cup race in Koksijde, Van der Poel and Brand were supreme.
For Van der Poel it was the fifth victory in as many cyclo-cross races and his fourth World Cup victory. For Brand it was her tenth cyclo-cross victory in a row and the sixth World Cup victory of the season.
Rare circumstances
There were some uncertainties beforehand about what kind of match it would be in Flanders. The normally muddy, wet and difficult course was unusually dry, hard and fast this year.
“I’ve only seen this once before, fifteen years ago. I sound so old now,” Van der Poel chuckled beforehand. “These are tricky circumstances.” And that led to no one really standing out for a large part of the match.
The Dutch Van der Poel and Tibor del Grosso led the race for a long time with the Belgians Thibau Nys, Michael Vanthourenhout, Toon Aerts and Emiel Verstrynge. But every time things went uphill, Van der Poel and Nys turned out to be the strongest riders of the day.
View the reactions of Mathieu van der Poel and Thibau Nys afterwards:
With three laps to go, Nys and Van der Poel remained in the lead, after which Van der Poel, who had mainly followed until then, increased the pace two laps before the end. A mistake by Nys, in which he shot from his kicker, gave Van der Poel a gap that he did not give up.
“Thibau was very strong on this lap,” Van der Poel said afterwards. “When he made a mistake in my wheel, I was given space.” Nys lost feeling in his feet and went off his pedal twice, but acknowledged his superiority in the world champion: “Without that I wouldn’t have been able to follow him.”
The Belgian crossed the finish line second, about twenty seconds behind Van der Poel. Behind them, Del Grosso rode to third place.
Burn supreme
Earlier on Boxing Day, Brand had won her twelfth cyclo-cross victory of the season with force majeure. The 36-year-old Dutch woman was unapproachable on the unusually dry World Cup Cross. About twenty seconds after Brand, the French Amandine Fouquenet finished second and the Dutch champion Puck Pieterse finished third.
For Brand, the victory in Gavere, Flemish, was her tenth cross victory in a row, and she is comfortably in the lead in the World Cup classification.
Brand wins a rare dry cross in Gavere, ahead of Fouquenet and Pieterse
In the first laps it seemed as if several riders were going to participate for the day. Because Fouquenet, Pieterse, Shirin van Anrooij and Carmen Ceylin Alvarado went well with Brand in the initial phase.
But when Brand was left alone at the front after three laps after first Van Anrooij and a lap later Pieterse had slipped on the dry, hard course, Brand continued mercilessly to the finish.
Fouquenet, winner of the cyclocross in Heusden-Zolder on Tuesday, managed to keep Pieterse behind her in the hopeless pursuit of Brand.
‘Search for the right feeling’
For Brand it was the tenth victory in a row. “You never get used to it,” she said afterwards. “But it was tough. In the beginning I really had to look for the right feeling. I changed tires a few times, I couldn’t find much grip with them. But then I slowly got into it. I had to grow into the race.”
Brand is expanding her lead in the World Cup rankings. “That’s going well. If I continue to focus on staying fit, I will have a good ranking.”
The next World Cup races that Brand and Van der Poel will ride will be in Dendermonde, Belgium, in two days.
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