World champion Mathieu van der Poel (BKCP-Corendon) won a thrilling edition of the night cross in Diegem, Belgium on Sunday. The 20 year-old Dutch rider beat a strong Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) and European champion Lars van der Haar (Team Giant-Alpecin) in the sprint. Wout Van Aert (Vastgoedservice-Golden Palace) remains Superprestige leader despite breaking his derailleur late in the race and finishing tenth in the sixth round of the cyclo-cross series. For Van der Poel it was the second win of the weekend after prevailing at the World Cup round in Heusden-Zolder on Saturday.
“It was the goal to be good during the week of Christmas. The only thing that I need to work on is to pull through after an acceleration. Now they’re always coming back,” Van der Poel told Telenet Play Sports.
Van der Poel's rivals will hope that he doesn’t get better, because his many accelerations are causing a lot of damage in the field. On Sunday, only Pauwels and Van der Haar were able to survive the scrimmages until the finish. In addition to his accelerations, Van der Poel also displayed his technical skills that put him a level above the rest.
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During the opening lap he showed off with a BMX-style jump on the flyover, but in the final lap, a braking manoeuvre against Pauwels put him in front before the last crucial technical section.
“That was on the limit, but I had to be in front there. It showed when I got stuck in the mud afterwards. If I hadn't been in front, I would never have gotten the victory. That brake manoeuvre wouldn’t have been possible without disc brakes. Otherwise I would’ve landed in the fencing,” Van der Poel said.
The three leaders featured in front straight from the first lap. Van der Poel punched away straight from the start, but as the pace often dropped in front, multiple riders managed to bridge back up. Halfway through the race no fewer than 13 riders were back together, including Sven Nys (Crelan-AA Drink) who dropped his chain in the first lap and got stuck in traffic.
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