Mathieu van der Poel solos to third World Cup victory in icy Besançon

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Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) did it again, taking another solo victory at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Besançon on Sunday on a brutally cold day. The world champion powered away on the second lap of the slippery and heavy course to claim his third World Cup victory of this cyclocross season.

Toon Aerts (Deschacht-Hens-FSP), who got off to a fast start and stayed with Van der Poel during the first lap, held off the chasing field to secure second place, finishing 20 seconds behind the winner.

Niels Vandeputte (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was third, a further 16 seconds back.

Though Van der Poel said it would be a “difficult race to manage” at the start due to the conditions, he obviously had no problems on the course made slippery by a layer of ice over mud.

“It was nice course with a ice crowd as well, it’s nice to race here in France. It’s not often we go abroad anymore with cyclocross, so it's nice to see so many people here,” said Van der Poel who flew by private jet from his home in Antwerp to claim his fifth win out of five races.

After starting on the second row, Van der Poel quickly made his way through traffic to connect with Aerts before taking a faster line down on a small drop to take the front. He then put in the fastest lap - a time of 9:13 on the second lap - to establish his gap, and continued to find the safest and fastest path over the muddy and icy ruts on the technical course.

“It was really hard and in the end, the last two laps were even harder, but I kept doing my thing and I stayed out of trouble all day actually, and that was what I was trying to do.”

Aerts and Vandeputte settled in second and third place respectively, positions they occupied until the finish.

After a disastrous start marred by a bike exchange problem, World Cup leader Michael Vanthourenhout (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) found himself in 37th place, trailing the leader by over 30 seconds after the first lap. The Belgian mounted a determined chase, steadily working his way through the field and capitalizing on mistakes by those ahead. He ultimately crossed the line in seventh place, 1:17 behind the winner — enough to keep him in the World Cup leader’s jersey.

Also having issues was Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) who had trouble clipping in after a fast start, pushing him well down the rankings and forcing him to chase until he connected with Joran Wyseure (Crelan-Corendon) on the penultimate lap to battle for fourth place. The pair chose to skip the pit on the final lap but Iserbyt was able to pull away to take fourth place, nine seconds ahead of Wyseure who finished fifth.

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