In his fourth race after undergoing surgery on his left knee, cyclo-cross World champion Mathieu Van Der Poel captured his first victory of the season on Sunday afternoon. In Overijse, Belgium, the 20-year-old Dutch rider won solo ahead of Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) and Tom Meeusen (Telenet-Fidea) on a dry but tough course.
When crossing the finish line, Van der Poel pointed to his left knee in true Johan Museeuw-style. On the famous Roubaix vélodrome Johan Museeuw made the gesture when he won Paris-Roubaix in 2000 after overcoming major problems due to a knee injury.
“Like Museeuw,” Van der Poel told Sporza when asked about his gesture. “His injury was worse than mine but I thought about it recently. The recovery process was especially hard on the mental front. It’s fun to come back the way I did. It makes up for the suffering. I’m very glad to have taken the win today.”
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The Druivencross is a classic cyclo-cross race with a history that goes back to 1960. The undulating course demands no artificial obstacles and only allows for strong riders to win. In 2001 the ‘mother of all cyclo-cross races’ left the Superprestige series. This time around, though, the independent organization failed to attract many prolific riders. Major absentees were crowd favourite Sven Nys but also Wout Van Aert, Lars van der Haar and Saturday’s star Zdenek Stybar.
Van der Poel didn’t mind their absence as he was pleased to be back in the races after his surgery in early October. In Overijse he slipped away at the start line and hit the first ascent of the 2,500 metres course outside the top 10. In front, Michael Vanthourenhout (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) went full gas, creating a gap on the rest of the field. Van der Poel trailed the leader after the opening lap by 15 seconds. During the second lap, Meeusen took over the command on the climbs and only Vanthourenhout was able to keep up. Meanwhile, Van der Poel was still fighting his way through traffic, climbing his way into the top 10.
Meeusen kept going full gas on the unforgiving course, with Vanthourenhout working hard to hold his wheel. Nevertheless, Van der Poel managed to bridge up to the leaders in the fourth lap together with a clearly struggling Kevin Pauwels. Vanthourenhout took over the command, probably in support of Pauwels but the latter quickly got dropped again after a technical mistake.
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