Christoph Roodhooft teases Van der Poel's Christmas CX schedule
The cyclocross season is well underway, the UCI World Cup is set to kick off next weekend in Tabor, and yet we're all still on tenterhooks as to when the men's elite world champion is likely to make his first appearance. It's been a long time since Mathieu van der Poel has raced a full CX season, but team boss Christoph Roodhooft has given an indication as to when he might make his long-awaited season debut in the rainbow bands.
"Around Christmas," the Alpecin-Deceuninck team boss told Sporza at this weekend's Flandriencross, "then he will be seen somewhere."
The CX Kerstperiode begins on 20 December with the World Cup round in Antwerp, an event the world champion has won seven times, most recently in the 23-24 season. That seems a good bet for a starting point – it worked for him last year when he commenced a reduced programme at Zonhoven on 22 December, and won all of his eight races. His actual programme should be revealed in the next couple weeks, after which point we can expect Wout van Aert to reveal his own, crucially including at least a few opportunities to compete sans Van der Poel.
