Alpecin-Deceuninck have introduced the cyclocross calendar of Mathieu van der Poel with the reigning World Champion taking over 13 races this season.
The Dutchman will begin his cyclocross season with Precise Cross in Mol on December 22 and compete often over the next six weeks earlier than concluding his marketing campaign on the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Tabor on February 4.
The schedule is broadly much like his cyclocross campaigns within the latest 2020-21 and 2022-23 seasons during which he competed in 14 and 15 races, respectively. He’s, nonetheless, beginning his season at a later date than both – final 12 months he received underway on November 27.
Final season, he received six of his 14 races earlier than incomes with one other world title after a memorable duel towards rival Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) in Hoogerheide.
This season, he’ll tackle six rounds of the UCI World Cup, together with Antwerp (December 23), Gavere (December 26), Hulst (December 30), Zonhoven (January 7), Benidorm (January 21) and Hoogerheide (January 28). Three rounds of the X2O Trofee collection – Baal, Koksijde and Hamme – are additionally on his schedule together with Precise Cross rounds at Mol and Loenhout.
Van der Poel’s huge purpose of the season, nonetheless, can be capturing a sixth elite males’s world title after taking the rainbow stripes in 2015, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023. He additionally received junior world titles in 2012 and 2013. In 2024, the Worlds can be held within the Czech metropolis of Tabor, the positioning of his first elite title again in 2015.
The 2023-24 ‘cross season will see Van der Poel compete each few days with just one main hole within the schedule between the World Cups in Zonhoven and Benidorm in January. As was the case final 12 months, the break ought to see him hyperlink up together with his Alpecin-Deceuninck staff for a pre-road season coaching camp.
Van der Poel lately confirmed the broad define of his cyclocross season, stating that racing a restricted marketing campaign by means of the winter helps him put together for the next Classics season on the highway.
Along with his season schedule now confirmed, he’ll now be ready to see which races his ‘cross and highway rivals Van Aert and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) can be competing in.
“I will begin my cyclocross season in late December. It’s going to be the identical as final 12 months, with 10 to fifteen races and the World Championships because the final purpose,” Van der Poel mentioned lately on the Madrid Criterium.
“Cyclocross is one thing I’ve accomplished since I used to be just a little child. I believe a Traditional on the highway is similar to a cyclocross race; the one distinction is that it’s important to race 5 hours earlier than. Now, I handle to be fairly contemporary on the finish of lengthy races. The method began a few years in the past and now I believe I am at my greatest on the highway as properly.”
