The conditions for the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Namur were some of the toughest we have seen all year. Steady rain throughout the week made the legendary Namur course extremely technical – deep puddles, muddy roots and slippery off-cambers that wouldn’t be out of place on a mountain bike circuit. The racing was an epic battle for survival, with few riders making it through without a crash.
In the women’s race, the early laps were full of action with Ceylin Alvarado (Corendon – Circus) and Annemarie Worst (777) taking turns on the attack. But any advantage they gained was soon lost when each crashed in the gripless conditions. In the third lap, Lucinda Brand (Telenet Baloise Lions) pushed into the lead and she kept charging through lap 4, building her lead to 27 seconds with just one lap to go. But it’s not over till it’s over and Brand suffered a crash on the technical descent, then had to run up the cobbled climb. Alvarado saw a chance for glory, but Brand was simply too strong and held on to win, 15 seconds ahead of Alvarado, with Annemarie Worst a minute back in third spot.
As the men lined up to race, the rain started to come in again. World Champ Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon – Circus) must certainly have wanted a win more than ever – just a week ago, he lost his first race in over a year, being beaten by Toon Aerts (Telenet Fidea Lions) at Ronse.
Van der Poel quickly fought through the bunch and starting pushing to make a gap, with Toon Aerts, Corne van Kessel (Telenet Baloise Lions) and Quinten Hermans (Telenet Fidea Lions) fighting to stay in touch. Aerts alone managed to close the gap on van der Poel and the race soon became a two-rider battle. There were many hazards lurking under the deep muddy puddles, causing van der Poel to puncture in lap 2, giving Aerts a 13 second advantage.
The two leaders continued to trade attacks for the lead position, both suffered their share of mishaps and they came into the last lap together. Van der Poel was leading down one of the most difficult descents when Aerts lost the front wheel and crashed hard. It took him a while to get back up and he knew his chance for the win was gone. Van der Poel disappeared and took the win by 55sec, while Aerts rode slowly through to 2nd spot, Corne van Kessel was another 20sec back in 3rd place.
The shots of the riders shivering and trying to recover in the winners tent afterwards really tell the story of how rough the race was. It was also reported later that Aerts fractured a rib in his crash.
