'I believed I could make it a battle' - Van Aert's punctures end brief Van der Poel duel

Wout van Aert looked to be enjoying his best outing of the cyclocross season to date at the Azencross in Loenhout on Monday, but two punctures saw the Belgian fall out of contention as Mathieu van der Poel soared to yet another victory.

After a strong start, Van Aert hit the front on the third lap and managed to split the field, with Van der Poel the only man able to follow his surge. Van Aert’s challenge would wither on the following lap, however, when he suffered the first of two punctures.

Van der Poel duly forged clear, opening a gap of half a minute, and Van Aert’s resistance was definitively crushed when he suffered another puncture shortly afterwards. He confessed afterwards that he would have considered abandoning had it not been for the 15,000-strong crowd cheering him on.

“I only rode for the supporters,” Van Aert said, according to Het Laatste Nieuws. “I was already coming to watch this race when I was five years old. I really wanted to ride to the bus, but I couldn’t.”

Van Aert would cross the line in 10th place, 1:26 down on the rampant Van der Poel. While Van der Poel has now collected six wins from six starts this season, Van Aert has only second-place finishes at Zolder and Hofstade to show from his five races thus far.

“I felt good,” Van Aert said on Monday’s race. “I wanted to take the initiative, and I succeeded, because I got ahead with Mathieu. I had a hard time following him, but I still believed I could turn it into a battle. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It’s a shame.”

The Visma | Lease a Bike rider endured the indignity of puncturing twice on exactly the same part of the course. 

“The second time, I punctured on the same rock as the first,” Van Aert said. “I was at my limit and under pressure, but I just had to hold on until the finish. I could have recovered a bit there. I could have done that lap.

“I spent the last two laps looking for the rock, because I wanted to know where it was. There were just some small stones lying around. I don’t understand it.”

Van Aert’s next cyclocross outing will come on January 2 at the Exact Cross in Mol, where he will again face off against Van der Poel.