Thibau Nys to kick off cyclo-cross campaign at Koppenbergcross after challenging road season

The Koppenbergcross has been run 36 times, and almost a third of those editions have been won by a member of the Nys family, with Sven winning nine times in the 2000s before his son Thibau Nys took up the mantle in 2023 and 2025.

Nys junior will be hoping to make it 12 wins for the Belgian cyclo-cross dynasty this weekend as he kicks off his campaign at Koppenbergcross – officially the Oudenaarde round of the X2O Badkamers Trofee – on Sunday.

Given he has already won this iconic event, with takes in the famous cobbled Koppenberg climb in Flanders, Nys is targeting nothing less than victory in his first race back on the mud this season.

"Otherwise, I cannot be satisfied," he told VTM Nieuws as he trained on the course on Wednesday, with his father and a smattering of fans in attendance.

"I am very well aware that it will not be easy, perhaps the most difficult edition of the last few years for me. But on the Koppenberg, I cannot be happy with a podium finish."

The main reason Nys expects a tougher edition than usual is that he's had a particularly short preparation period for his cyclo-cross season. That's because he raced the Vuelta a España in September and then the Road World Championships, giving him only a few weeks to switch to CX training.

"Because everything had to be crammed into three weeks, I was unable to do quite a few important training sessions," he said. "And those are precisely the sessions that can provide a confidence boost. So we’ll have to make do with it and hope it’s enough."

Starting with possibly the most important race for him personally seems like both throwing himself back in at the deep end and a way to ensure he hits the ground running, with chasing his father's record of nine wins something of a career goal for the 23-year-old.

"I want to win that race as many times as possible in my career, more than, for example, wanting to become European Champion," he said, though he has won the stars-and-stripes jersey before, and will be in the team in the Netherlands in mid-November.

"That doesn't mean I prefer the Koppenberg over Zeddam [host of the European Championships] in two weeks right now, but after my career, I would rather be able to say that I managed to win on the Koppenberg seven or eight times than that I became European Champion seven times."

There is also perhaps extra pressure on Nys to put together a successful 'cross campaign this winter given how tough his road season was. He underwent knee surgery in March, which required a long period away from racing – he missed the first six months of the year – meaning he could only fit in 30 race days and had no wins.

He took third on a stage of the Vuelta, but was then a DNF at the Road Worlds. But with his knee seemingly in full working order again, he can hope to stand on the top step of a podium again soon – as soon as this weekend, he hopes.

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