Fewer rounds and a more concentrated calendar to attract van Aert and van der Poel: focus on the new-look cyclo-cross World Cup

David Lappartient, the president of the UCI, wants to restore all its prestige to the World Cup. ©Press Sports

Better readability

If the most die-hard slush fans have never really had any difficulty deciphering the puzzle of the cyclo-cross season calendar, the general public sometimes got a little lost between the different regularity rankings. . To provide better readability, the UCI wanted to “reserve” the Sundays of the hottest period of the season for the World Cup. For two months, Lord’s Day will therefore be systematically occupied by what the UCI wishes to be the flagship competition. The only exception: Sunday January 12 during which the national championships will take place. Two weekends (21-22/12, 25-26/1) will host a double meeting while the Gavere round is scheduled for the Thursday of the “holy” week of the discipline which links Christmas to the New Year. To promote the “internationalization” of cyclo-cross, the federation has also decided to protect four dates (Dublin, Cabras, Hulst and Besançon) by prohibiting any other event on the same day and the day before.

How the UCI hopes to attract more stars to cyclo-cross or on the track

When can we expect to see van Aert and van der Poel there?

This is obviously the question that everyone is asking and over which there is always a form of uncertainty. If the two superstars of the Labourés have not yet pinned their first bib of the season, they could well make their concert debut. If the Belgian, currently present in Spain to train, should participate in a course of his Visma training | Lease a Bike from December 8 to 18 on the Costa Blanca (Olivia), the most logical choice would push it towards a resumption in Hulst (12/21) and/or Zonhoven (12/22). But as a round of the X2O trophy takes place a week earlier at his home in Herentals, some imagine him giving his first pedal strokes in competition at home.

As for Mathieu van der Poel, things are a little more vague to date. In the wake of his world title in gravel, the Dutchman had left doubts as to whether or not he would be present in the plowed terrain this winter. After his vacation, MVP resumed training which his staff said “articulated around spring”. However, the six-time cyclo-cross world champion should not abandon this season a discipline that has built him. According to several organizers, it could thus resume as Christmas approaches. On the Hulst circuit (12/21) whose technical dimension has always pleased him? It is in any case no coincidence that the twelve rounds of this new-look World Cup were concentrated on the period during which the two stars have evolved in recent years…