Cycling
How Wout van Aert remembers his 3 cyclocross World Champs wins
With a trio of senior world titles already to his name, Belgium's Wout van Aert heads to the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships this coming Sunday hoping to win gold for the 4th time.
After another impressive cyclocross season in 2022-23, Belgian cycling superstar Wout van Aert is targeting what would be a fourth UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships win in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands, on Sunday.
van Aert won three consecutive World Championships between 2016 and 2018, when he was fully concentrated on riding cyclocross. Since then he's bagged two silver medal finishes at the World Championships after having decided to combine ambitions on the road and cyclocross, shortening his commitments to the sport where he initially made his name.
Wout van Aert is a man in form
© Kristof Ramon/Red Bull Content Pool
The 28-year-old's form is good. van Aert has won nine of the 13 races he's entered this cyclocross season and finished second in the other four. Two of those wins have come in the UCI World Cup series in Dublin and Zonhoven. His last race this past weekend (Saturday, January 28) saw him finish first at Flandriencross, which is part of the X²O Badkamers Trophy series.
A fourth world title and a chance to wear the famous UCI rainbow jersey next season has been a major aim for van Aert this winter. As a warm-up to Sunday's World Championship race, we looked back with him on his previous World Championship wins and what he remembers of those races.
01
2016 – Heusden-Zolder, Belgium
van Aert's first World Championship title came in front of a fervent home crowd at the Heusden-Zolder course in Belgium.
"I'd been looking forward to the World Championship in Zolder for a long time – a championship in front of my fellow Belgians. A few weeks before that I'd won my first Belgian national title in Lille. That was already a huge relief for me and I could go to the world champs without stress. I prepared very well in Spain with my then coach Niels Albert," van Aert mentions.
Throughout his career, both in cyclocross and on the road, van Aert has famously competed closely with Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel for wins. Their careers largely mirror each other and in the many cyclocross races when they've both competed against each other in the past decade they've regularly traded wins and second places.
van Aert leading van der Poel at the 2016 Worlds in Heusden-Zolder
© Kristof Ramon
This 2016 World Championship saw them in battle and a moment between them came to define the race. van der Poel and van Aert, who were at that moment in second and third, both had to get off their bikes on the muddy course in Zolder. However, in doing so van der Poel got his foot stuck in van Aert's front wheel.
Another Dutch athlete, Lars van der Haar, was leading the race at that point and used that situation to his advantage and build a good time advantage.
van Aert and van der Haar battle on the last lap
© Kristof Ramon
A first senior world championship win for van Aert
© Kristof Ramon
van Aert never gave up, though, and caught up with van der Haar by the final lap of the race. They couldn't be separated until the last climb, when van Aert just about got a gap over van der Haar. van Aert ran with his bike on the first part of the last climb, before getting on his bike for the second part of the uphill. He then put down the power to stretch out his lead, van der Haar couldn't respond, and with that van Aert had won his first senior world title at the age of 21.
"I was able to get away from Lars on that last climb. It was a section I'd trained on a lot only the month before. It gave me a lot of confidence to be there at that point on the last lap. I knew exactly where I was going to overtake him."
02
2017 – Bieles, Luxemburg
Preparation coming into the 2017 Worlds was far from ideal for van Aert, as he hadn't raced for two weeks due to a knee injury.
"Preparing for these World Championships was very difficult. I injured my knee after the Belgian Championships and couldn't prepare perfectly. I started in Bieles with doubts, but the race went differently than I expected," recalls van Aert.
A knee injury left van Aert with some self doubts
© Kristof Ramon
The conditions in Bieles were also a worry. The day before the race, the course was hard-packed with snow and ice, but by the time racing started for the men's senior race, conditions had thawed somewhat.
"During the warm-up, I noticed that there was a lot of loose rocks. I had tyres on the bike that were more suitable for winter conditions, so I tested the tyres during the warm-up to be sure. They felt very hard on the rocky surface, but I felt I had nothing to lose due to the poor preparation and I chose to leave these tyres on. This gamble turned out to be the right one," van Aert explains.
The tyres van Aert opted for had a distinctive green tread that were last produced commercially 17 years prior and had been sourced by his coach Niels Albert, who'd used them in the past and felt they were the right choice for the conditions.
The famous green tyres!
© Kristof Ramon
The tyres proved to be the right choice, as van Aert was one of the few riders to only puncture once during a race where his competitors punctured multiple times. One of the athletes who did puncture was van der Poel. The Dutchman and van Aert were duelling at the front of the race, with van der Poel seemingly physically the stronger of the two, but a fourth puncture for van der Poel towards the end of Lap 5 was the defining moment. van Aert got away from his rival and went on to win by 44 seconds in the end.
"When I took the lead in the second half of the race, I really had wings. I was setting the best times of the whole race. To win two world champs was really very special."
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A second world title and just a little bit of relief after a hard race
© Kristof Ramon
03
2018 – Valkenburg, Netherlands
The next World Championship win, van Aert's third title, would come on van der Poel's home turf in the Netherlands. He was considered a strong favourite, and had been dominating the 2017-18 cyclocross season to that point, mostly having the upper hand in his one-on-one battles with van Aert.
"The season was difficult and it wasn't until the end of December and beginning of January that it all clicked," van Aert recalls. "I only had one goal: the World Championships. In the end I got a circuit that suited me perfectly – one with lots of running."
Going into Valkenburg, van Aert wasn't confident
© Kristof Ramon
van der Poel started strongly on the first lap, but van Aert managed to get back on his wheel and in some of the running sections, van Aert clearly had the upper hand. On Lap 2, van Aert managed to gap van der Poel and his ability to run sections faster saw the Belgian build a substantial gap between the two.
"Mathieu was the big favourite. All the pressure was on him after a good season. My plan was to try to create some mental superiority. I remember very well that I overtook him on the first lap. That was actually a bluff, but it was a good decision, I think. On the following lap I was able to build a big difference," says van Aert.
Once he gapped van der Poel, van Aert never looked back
© Kristof Ramon
From there on van Aert kept his cool and soloed to victory, finishing more than two minutes ahead of another Belgian athlete, Michael Vanthourenhout.
"It was the best day of my season and a race that made up for all the previous ones that season. It was also the last winter where I completely concentrated on cyclocross. A few weeks after the Worlds, I competed on the road in the Belgian one-day classics for the first time. This was last time that I made the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships my main objective."
A fine achievement – 3 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships wins in a row
© Kristof Ramon