As the road season finale draws close, a hefty percentage of the peloton will soon be heading on holiday, but Thibau Nys will not be amongst them, with the Belgian star confirming he's currently on track for another full program of cyclocross racing this winter.
Nys is set for 22 races in a little over three months, starting November 1, he told Belgian media this weekend, starting with the Koppenberg Cross on home soil and ending with the World Championships in Hulst, Netherlands, on February 1 - the same race where he took the bronze this spring.
That's the same number of cyclocross races as in 2024-25 for the 22-year-old reigning Belgian and European Champion, but that was over nearly four months.
One of his big goals for the cyclocross season, Nys told Nieuwsblad would be to try to move closer to Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert, the dominating forces in cyclocross and who took the two top spots in the World Championships ahead of him this spring.
"I hope that with a bigger foundation, I can take an extra step to at least place myself between those two," Nys said.
"Beating them is another story altogether, but it has to be a goal to try. I want to win more races than last year, and I'm going to try to defend my European and Belgian titles as well."
Nys told the newspaper that he believes the workload provided by his road-racing program this year, which included his first-ever participation in the Tour de France with Lidl-Trek, will help him take another step up in the cyclocross season.
"I can tell another layer [of condition] is there. I feel it in my recovery and my training," he said - and this despite a bad fall when training in Sierra Nevada and sickness in the Tour of Belgium, as well as ending his 2025 road season early at the Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France.
"I did absolutely nothing for two weeks," Nys added. "I really needed that. I did it with a heavy heart, but it was the only right decision."
"If I hadn't put the brakes on then, I would have been in trouble this cyclocross season or next year," he added to VRT. "And then it's hard to correct."
"We were able to avoid more damage. I feel like I'm coming back to life."
His boosted condition will help him take some more steps in the upcoming series of 22 races. Apart from defending his Euro and Nationals titles on November 8 and January 10 respectively, he'll also take part in the one World Cup win of last seaso in Benidorm, on January 18.
Nys gave short shrift to those who feel he has taken on too much with such a big program in two different cycling disciplines, telling VRT, "Apparently, they don't fully understand me."
"Cyclocross is still very important to me, and I still have so much to prove to myself and everyone else before heading in a different direction."
"You can't compare my situation to Van Aert or Van der Poel, who have already won countless cyclocross races and titles. Eventually, you can shift your focus, but I'm nowhere near that point yet."
"I want to create something that, in 10 to 15 years, people will say I've made a difference in this sport. That's a bit easier in cyclocross than on the road. But it is a goal: to create something that people will appreciate."
