Dutch champion Mathieu van der Poel (Beobank-Corendon) won the third Telenet UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup round in Valkenburg, Netherlands. Once again the young generation dominated the race in the Elite Men category. The 21-year-old Dutch rider finished solo, well ahead of World champion Wout Van Aert (Crelan-Vastgoedservice) and Michael Vanthourenhout (Marlux-Napoleon Games).
"It's good to win a World Cup round," Van der Poel told Telenet Play Sports. A crash from Van Aert made it easier to keep his gap over his rivals. "Yesterday it was my turn to crash, now it was Wout. If we put each other under pressure mistakes can happen more quickly. We're a close match to each other these days. To make the difference we have to test our limits."
Halfway through the nine-lap race around the famous Cauberg climb there were five leaders in the race with Van der Poel and Van Aert clearly being the strongest men. With three laps to go on the mostly dry course Van der Poel jumped away in a technical section, creating a small gap on Van Aert, Vanthourenhout and Tom Meeusen (Telenet-Fidea). One lap later the gap was still there when Van Aert slipped away in a fast off-camber descent, taking Meeusen down with him.
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"He already had a gap when I fell. It's stupid to say you just crash out of the blue. Riders know why they crash: it's because you're riding on your limit. Mathieu was simply better and I'm happy I could salvage second place," Van Aert admitted.
Van der Poel easily brought the victory home, winning with a lead of 14 seconds over Van Aert and 21 seconds ahead of Vanthourenhout. "I was riding on my limit. I had a reference point where I saw that the gap was suddenly much bigger. I thought that Wout was the only rider not to crash but they were all affected," Van der Poel said.
Much earlier in the race Van Aert had played his cards. After a fast start from European champion Lars van der Haar (Giant-Alpecin) it was the world champion who took over the initiative. Only Van der Haar, Vanthourenhout, Meeusen, Toon Aerts (Telenet-Fidea) and Kevin Pauwels (Marlux-Napoleon Games) were glued on his wheel.
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