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Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert during CX World Cup Benidorm.

The wait is almost over: Van der Poel and Van Aert have set a date for their first CX duel

Third of the ‘Big Three’ Tom Pidcock has yet to confirm any appearances – or indeed that he won’t be racing at all this cyclocross season.

Kit Nicholson
by Kit Nicholson 14.12.2024 Photography by
Kristof Ramon
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On Friday it was finally revealed that world cyclocross champion Mathieu van der Poel will race 11 CX events this winter. This comes a week after the Dutchman’s lifetime rival Wout van Aert’s team Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed a six-race programme for their own multiple world champ.

Long story short: both the sport’s top riders will line up at their first CX race of the 24-25 season a few days before Christmas, meeting for the first time at the sandy Superprestige Mol – Zilvermeercross on Monday 23rd December.

Van der Poel will get a head start in Zonhoven (22nd December) as the ‘Kerstperiode’ – which runs through Christmas and into the new year – gets underway with a Belgian double header, with his rival joining the fray on Monday. This also means that the full-time ’crossers will hit Saturday’s Hulst round (21st December) with extra vim and vigour, the last World Cup round of the season without a Van Aert or Van der Poel in attendance – a table of their full winter schedules is included below. 

Wout van Aert and world champions Mathieu van der Poel take a slow corner through thick wet mud during GP Sven Nys 2024.
The deeply muddy GP Sven Nys was one of many meetings between Van Aert and Van der Poel last season. The world champ went on to win by almost two minutes, extending his season’s winning streak to eight – he’d make it to 10 before Van Aert won in Benidorm.

Van Aert’s six events include happy hunting ground for the three-time CX world champion, all fairly close to home, beginning in Mol where he’s won four times to Van der Poel’s three – though the latter is reigning champ – then north-west to Loenhout where both could add a fifth course win to their respective tallies. Superprestige Gullegem will be Van Aert’s first of two events sans Van der Poel, and he will wrap up his minimal campaign with one last face-off in Maasmechelen, one of very few venues lacking a win for either of the big two.

Wrapped up in the eager anticipation for the first mano-a-mano duel of the winter will be indications as to Van Aert’s recovery. After a disproportionately unlucky road season that included a season-derailing crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Belgian hit the Vuelta a España with a vengeful spirit, but it all came crashing down, again, while on the attack on stage 16. It was a devastating blow, and the knee injury he picked up required surgery, antibiotics and several days in hospital. With that in mind, he and his team have taken a cautious approach to any potential CX participation.

“Cyclocross remains my first love, which is why I enjoy returning to it every winter,” Van Aert said in a team statement. “This winter … it will be a cyclocross season I approach purely out of love for the sport, but with modest ambitions. After my crash in the Vuelta and my knee injury, it’s essential to make the best use of the time I have to prepare for the road season. A few cyclocross races fit nicely into that plan, but the schedule is deliberately more limited than in previous years.”

Van der Poel had also been followed around by rumours that he may race an extremely limited programme, even that he may draw a line under his elite cyclocross career entirely after neatly closing a circle at the Tábor World Championships in early 2024. However, with his sights set firmly on what would be a record-equalling seventh world title, Van der Poel’s is a busy but compact programme bursting with World Cups until 5th January, after which he’ll take a two-week break to better prepare for the last two World Cup rounds and the World Champs in Liévin, France.

“The seventh world title … is the only thing I still have to achieve in CX: this unique record of Erik De Vlaeminck,” Van der Poel said in his team’s announcement. “This aspiration has been a driving force in shaping my commitment to this winters cyclocross season. The world championship in Liévin is the only real goal, although I hope to fight for victory in all the other races I take part in. But we’ll see how I do in the first weeks. As I said, the peak will be a bit later this year.”

Van der Poel, who will turn 30 on January 19th – the day of the Benidorm World Cup which he has opted to skip in favour of a training camp – took victory in 13 out of the 14 races he entered last CX season. Van Aert, meanwhile, raced nine and won three, beating Van der Poel once in Benidorm and finishing on the podium on five occasions. The season before, it was much more of a tug of war, with Van Aert completing 14 races with a full house of 1s and 2s and one-upping Van der Poel in their duel with six to the Dutchman’s five, although Van der Poel arguably won a tie-breaker of sorts in the most thrilling World Championships in recent memory.

Mathieu van der Poel leads Wout van Aert downa dry grassy ramp towards the end of the 2023 World Championship CX race in Hoogerheide, Netherlands.
The 2023 World Championships marked a perfect end to a thrilling season for Van Aert and Van der Poel, the latter narrowly out-sprinting his rival on home soil to win a fifth elite world title.

One man who we’re yet to hear anything concrete from is Tom Pidcock, who has rightly or wrongly been included among his fellow world champions in the ‘Big Three’ in recent seasons. In fact, Pidcock’s coach has indicated that he may not race at all, at least before January, which of course could now be interpreted as: he shall not race again in an Ineos Grenadiers jersey.

“At the moment he needs consistency and I don’t think he needs to race in the short term,” Kurt Bogaerts told Dan Benson in early December – crucially, before the move to Q36.5 was finalised. “The chance of cyclocross is limited. We haven’t made a plan yet, but I doubt he will do anything in December because there’s not much left.”

RaceDateWout van AertMathieu van der Poel
World Cup ZonhovenDec 22X
Superprestige MolDec 23XX
World Cup GavereDec 26X
Exact Cross LoenhoutDec 27XX
World Cup BesançonDec 29X
X20 Trofee Baal – GP Sven NysJan 1X
X20 Trofee KoksijdeJan 3X
Superprestige GullegemJan 4X
World Cup DendermondeJan 5XX
World Cup BenidormJan 19X
World Cup MaasmechelenJan 25XX
World Cup HoogerheideJan 26X
World Championships LiévinFeb 2X

Standing in the wings and ready to step into the spotlight vacated by the Brit is Thibau Nys. Son of cyclocross legend Sven, Thibau has stepped up on both the mud and road since advancing to the elite level last season. On the road, he’s taken nine wins including the overall at the Tour of Hungary and no less than three stage wins at the WT-level Tour of Poland, while his 24-25 CX season has so far delivered three wins, including his first elite European title. The 22-year-old is yet to win an elite World Cup round on European soil, but he’s now widely expected to present the ‘Big Two’ with the most significant challenge come the Kerstperiode.

Fenix-Deceuninck’s Puck Pieterse meanwhile is set to begin her 13-race winter programme this weekend in Namur – where she will face formidable competition in Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lucinda Brand (Baloise Trek Lions) and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (Fenix-Deceuninck). It’s the first of eight World Cup rounds that the 22-year-old is due to race, as well as the Nationals and then the World Championships to finish on February 1st. After a two-month break, it’s a continuation of a 2024 that has included the Tour de France Femmes white jersey on debut, the elite MTB world title and the U23 road world title.

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