The race opened up already in its first lap as the eventual medalists left the everyone else far behind trying to keep up with a high pace set by Van der Poel. The others, including Nieuwenhuis chose to follow a more moderate pace, but later grew to regret it as Nys with Del Grosso were simply out of their reach in the second half of the race.
Still, Nieuwenhuis is confident he could’ve gone for a medal had he experienced at least a bit better day. “I just didn’t have that. I also think I’m past my peak form. I’ve had a busy period, and changing teams took a lot of energy.”
Mathieu is a living legend
Just one year younger than Van der Poel, Nieuwenhuis spent most of his career racing in the shadow of his older compatriot. While that made the career of Nieuwenhuis slightly less accomplished, it put him in a perfect position to be able to fully admire Van der Poel’s generational talent which never faded.
“I’ve always seen Mathieu win. With the novices, juniors, U23s, elite… At some point, you start to consider that normal, but what he’s doing is obviously not normal. It’s truly bizarre; he’s a living legend.”
The 2026 cyclocross World Championships podium
Among the cyclocross riders, Van der Poel’s performances are almost becoming normal, Nieuwenhuis agrees. But it still is impossible for anyone to really step forward to challenge the Dutchman, maybe except a healthy Wout Van Aert at times. “He starts here, even though we all know how he’s going to do it. And he does it. Something can always happen in cyclocross, but somehow it never does with him. He even has that under control.”
With his victory, Van der Poel finally surpassed the ’70s legend Eric De Vlaeminck who held the crown for best cyclocrosser of history for over 50 years. And while the world champion could be satisfied with this achievement, it wouldn’t be a shock if he chose to round things off with a ’10’ next to his counter of rainbow jerseys…