Van Aert will meet Van der Poel five times in his eight-race CX schedule
Just days after Mathieu van der Poel announced his own winter programme, Wout van Aert has revealed his own, spanning eight races, and overlapping his nemesis at five of them.
The pair will meet first as the Kerstperiode begins at the Antwerp World Cup round on 20 December, Van Aert's season debut – it may be Van der Poel's too depending on whether he commits to a for-now provisional appearance at Namur seven days earlier. Van Aert is notably not listing the World Championships on his programme.
Van Aert's schedule (Van der Poel's races marked with an asterisk):
- World Cup – Antwerp: December 20 *
- X2O Badkamers – Hofstade: December 22 *
- Superprestige – Heusden-Zolder: December 23
- World Cup – Dendermonde: December 28
- X2O Badkamers – Azencross, Loenhout: December 29 *
- Exact Cross – Mol: January 2 *
- World Cup – Zonhoven: January 4 *
- Belgian National Championships: January 11
