Gold for eccentric cycling star
Van der Poel destroys competition at Cross World Championships
Road cycling world champion Mathieu van der Poel is also a force to be reckoned with off the road. The Dutchman won his sixth title in total at the Cross World Championships. He clearly outclassed the competition. His next big goal is the Olympic Games.
Cycling star Mathieu van der Poel raced to his sixth title at the Cross World Championships as if he were unleashed. The Dutch all-rounder celebrated a confident start-to-finish victory at the championships in Tabor, Czech Republic. Van der Poel won after six laps with a lead of 37 seconds over his compatriot Joris Nieuwenhuis. Third place went to Belgian Michael Vanthourenhout. The German athletes had no chance, with German champion Marcel Meisen coming in 32nd.
Van der Poel, who also won the road race title at the World Championships in Glasgow last year, is only one victory away from beating the record set by Belgian Erik De Vlaeminck in the cross country. He triumphed seven times between 1966 and 1973. Van der Poel won his first World Championship title nine years ago in Tabor.
Van der Poel, who has won 13 of his 14 cross-country races this season, was unrivalled on the muddy course. Three-time world champion Zdenek Stybar from the Czech Republic was also unable to achieve anything in the last race of his career. Van der Poel's biggest rivals Wout van Aert (Belgium) and Thomas Pidcock (Great Britain) decided not to take part.
Without distraction it works – sometimes even with
It is quite possible that the 29-year-old will continue his title hunt on the mountain bike at the Olympic Games in Paris. This was not yet possible at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2023 World Championships, when the grandson of Tour star Raymond Poulidor, who died in 2019, had to give up after a fall.
Van der Poel should not let himself be thrown off course by anything else. At the 2022 Road World Championships in Australia, the temperamental cycling star spent the night before the cycling showdown at the police station after a dispute with two girls in the hotel hallway and later gave up in frustration during the race.
At the end of last year, he let himself be carried away by a spitting attack at the spectators at the cross-country race in Hulst, after they had insulted him the whole time. “I've had enough of these boos,” said the 29-year-old, who had to pay a fine of 200 Swiss francs. He still took the win.
