Albert launches his assault on 2009/2010

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Belgium's Niels Albert ensured that the European cyclo-cross season kicked off with a bang on Sunday as he won the first World Cup round on Sunday in Italy. The reigning world champion's dominant performance was in stark contrast to that of Belgian champion Sven Nys, who failed to finish on the Treviso course.

Albert's 42 second victory over Czech rider Zdenek Stybar was a clear indication that he has hit the 2009/2010 cyclo-cross season with excellent condition. Although Albert recovered in time to claim the World Championship in January, much of last season was written off due to a torn spleen, the result of a crash while warming up at the Superprestige round in Gavere, Belgium.

"During the first races of this season I will take advantage of my excellent road form, which I hope will allow me to take a big step forward this season" Albert told Cyclingnews. "Since my crash I've been taking an even more professional approach to my racing."

While Albert's reputation has been bolstered his success Treviso, the man expected to be his biggest challenger this season, Sven Nys, finds himself 80 points behind the 23-year-old in the race for the overall World Cup title. It looks likely that Nys will instead focus his efforts on a tenth overall Superprestige title when the series gets underway at Ruddervoorde, Belgium, next weekend.

"I would really like to have 10 overall [Superprestige] victories, but I still have some years to accomplish that feat. I'm not the one-day champion that Roland Liboton [5 time World Champion and 10 time Belgian Champion] is, but I am the champion of consistency," Nys told Cyclingnews.

"With the competition from Albert, winning won't be easy, but I think that I can give him a hard time," he said. "Pulling away from him during a race doesn't seem possible nowadays, but he won't pull away from me too easily either."

With his second place to Albert on Sunday in Treviso, Zdenek Stybar (Telenet-Fidea Cycling Team) is likely to have moved a few steps higher on many observers' lists. The 23-year-old proved his pedigree last year when he won the Diegem round of the Superprestige series. Already this season he has tasted victory at two rounds of the Toi Toi Cup and although he sits second on the World Cup standings, his attention is focused squarely on the 2010 World championships. This season's world title will be decided in his native Czech Republic at Tabor in January, 2010.

"I'm going well and won some races back home. One of them was held in my home town and there were 4,000 people there," he said. "Last week I rode a couple of laps on the new course for the first time. There are four small climbs and in January there will be a lot of running; it will be a very tough course."

The second round of this year's World Cup will also take place in the Czech Republic, though not on the Tabor course. Albert will hope to extend his lead in the overall when the race gets underway in Plzen on October 16.

The riders will first travel to Belgium for the first round of the Superprestige in Ruddervoorde on October 11.

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