UCI CX WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS Men's Elite HOOGERHEIDE 2023 / You don't see this on television

UCI CYCLOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS HOOGERHEIDE 2023
Watch the exclusive footage from the eye of the visitors. You don't see this on TV.

Mathieu van der Poel became cyclo-cross world champion in Hoogerheide by beating Wout van Aert in a sprint with two. The World Cup turned into an insanely exciting duel between the top favourites, who pushed each other to the limit. In the sprint, Van der Poel played it on the surprise, with which he outpaced Van Aert. Eli Iserbyt grabbed the bronze.

Before the start, all eyes were already on Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, but the starting position was also interesting. Van Aert had to start on the second row and chose the wheel of his Dutch rival. The head start was for the home riders: Lars van der Haar was in the lead, ahead of Van der Poel and a fast Joris Nieuwenhuis. Van Aert struggled to squeeze into Van der Poel's wheel in the opening stages.

Already in the first round, MVDP chose the attack. He chose a sloping strip to demarcate. The only one who could follow him was Van Aert. After three minutes, the massive crowd got what it had come to Hoogerheide for: the duel of duels. The opposition was already more than ten seconds on the first lap.

Van der Poel set the pace and put pressure on, but Van Aert followed and took over after two laps. In the third round (out of ten), the Dutchman tried to punch a hole again, but his eternal rival did not budge. The average speed of the two frontrunners proved that it went very fast: towards 30 km/h.

Neither of the two ruffians could make a real difference. Van der Poel jumped over the bars better and better, but couldn't really drive away from Van Aert. That is why the Dutch leader tried to run off on one of the bridges in the seventh round. For a moment he had a four-bike lead by four kilometres, but again Van Aert was able to close the gap quickly.

In the eighth and ninth rounds, Van der Poel and Van Aert dropped the pace a bit. That was evident in the lap times, and so chasers Lars van der Haar and Eli Iserbyt – who went up and over Michael Vanthourenhout in the second half of the cross – were able to approach up to 15 seconds. However, they did not get any closer, because in the final round it went on the cutting edge with the title favorites.

Van Aert took over in the woods and tried to put Van der Poel under pressure, but the Dutchman took command again. There was no attack, with the passage over the beams and subsequent kicks in sight. They both came well over the beams, so it was going to arrive at a sprint-à-deux on the sloping Scheldeweg.

In that sprint, Mathieu van der Poel was the better one. He played it on the surprise and immediately hit a hole with Wout van Aert, who had the greatest difficulty in remounting Van der Poel's fiery spurt. The Dutchman managed to win his fifth world title among the elites in 'his' Hoogerheide, which allowed him to put the head-to-head battle with Van Aert at 5-3.

WK veldrijden 2023 in Hoogerheide
Uitslag elite mannen
Mathieu van der Poel in 1u07m20s
Wout van Aert in z.t.
Eli Iserbyt op 12s
Lars van der Haar op 13s
Michael Vanthourenhout op 46s
Gerben Kuypers op 54s
Laurens Sweeck op 59s
Cameron Mason op 1m08s
Clément Venturini op 1m30s
Jens Adams op 1m33s