Mathieu van der Poel starts his cyclocross season this weekend. On the Citadel of Namur, the Dutch world champion will race his first of thirteen cross events on Sunday. Looking at Van der Poel’s previous comebacks in cyclocross, one thing becomes clear: Van der Poel is always in great shape at his return. Yet in recent years, he also suffered a significant defeat at his comeback.
In 2024, Van der Poel also returned at the World Cup. That time, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider started a week later in Zonhoven, where he faced Thibau Nys, Michael Vanthourenhout, Laurens Sweeck, and Eli Iserbyt. All four riders had enjoyed a strong first part of the season with several victories, so the question before this race was: have these men closed the gap to Van der Poel’s level? The answer came after just one minute: no. Van der Poel didn’t leave anything to chance in Zonhoven and crossed the line after an hour of racing with more than a minute and a half lead over Nys.
In other races, we see a similar story. When MVDP returns to cyclocross, he immediately puts the competition to the sword. In 2023, when he returned at the X2O Badkamers Trophy in Herentals, he quickly dropped Tom Pidcock, Lars van der Haar, and Eli Iserbyt by half a minute. In 2022, Hulst at the end of November was the stage for a Van der Poel demonstration, beating Sweeck and Iserbyt.
Defeated by Van Aert
His last defeat at a comeback was in 2021. In Dendermonde, Wout van Aert rode away from the Dutchman by nearly a minute, who later indicated he was suffering from severe back pain. Those were almost immediately Van der Poel's last moments in cyclocross that season. He withdrew the following day in Heusden-Zolder and did not race in the field again that year. A crash on the mountain bike at the Olympic Games that year had taken its toll.
Van der Poel also had to yield defeat at his comeback in 2015. Then, on the sand in Koksijde, he was beaten by Sven Nys and Wout van Aert. However, that was a very different time: Van der Poel was mainly a cyclocross rider in those years and was only 20 years old. In the years that followed, he would no longer be beaten. Consecutively, that was in Gieten (2016), Eeklo (2017), Meulebeke (2018), Ruddervoorde (2019), and Antwerp (2020). The chance that the world champion will be beaten on Sunday in Namur therefore seems quite slim.
Mathieu van der Poel
