{"id":333565,"date":"2025-12-07T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T21:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333565\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T21:25:09","slug":"ouch-illness-bungs-up-wout-van-aerts-cross-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333565\/","title":{"rendered":"Ouch! Illness bungs up Wout Van Aert\u2019s \u2018cross season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, it is the winter and people get sick more than often, it seems.<br \/>Wout van Aert is scheduled to return to competition in roughly two weeks, when he lines up for the<\/p>\n<p>Antwerp World Cup on Dec. 20. His preparation has been less than ideal. According to Dutch and Belgian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wielerflits.nl\/nieuws\/wout-van-aert-was-enkele-dagen-ziek-maar-kan-trainingen-weer-hervatten\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">media<\/a>, he reportedly had to miss several training days due to illness.<\/p>\n<p>Wout\u2019s winter<\/p>\n<p>On Strava, the Visma \u2013 Lease a Bike rider mentioned that he had taken his \u201cfirst pedal strokes in a few days,\u201d adding a cute \u2018lil thermometer emoji to show he\u2019d been feeling unwell. It\u2019s not the lead-in he hoped for, but it remains unclear whether the setback will influence his opening cyclocross race on Antwerp\u2019s sandy course.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old still has more than two weeks to rebuild rhythm before his long-anticipated face-off with Mathieu van der Poel, who is expected to return earlier, in Namur. Antwerp will be the first of five meetings between the two this winter, followed by Hofstade, Loenhout, Mol and Zonhoven.<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert also plans to start in Heusden-Zolder, Dendermonde and the Belgian championships in early January. His team hasn\u2019t ruled out the world championships in Hulst, the Netherlands. But this was the same case last season\u2013it was a last minute kinda plan.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, his long-time friend\u2013and rival, has announced his \u2018cross season. The Dutchman will start his <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/you-can-watch-mathieu-van-der-poel-race-cross-even-sooner-than-expected\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cyclocross season earlier than expected<\/a>, confirming he\u2019ll race the Namur World Cup on Dec. 14 after weeks of uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>Alpecin\u2013Deceuninck announced the news while unveiling Premier Tech as a new cosponsor, noting that Van der Poel\u2019s latest training block erased any remaining doubts about his readiness. Team manager Christoph Roodhooft said the world champion needed a longer reset than usual but now feels his form is coming together.<\/p>\n<p>While Namur is locked in, the rest of his schedule may still shift to protect his road preparation, though a start at the world championships in Hulst\u2014where he could set a new all-time record\u2014is viewed as almost certain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, it is the winter and people get sick more than often, it seems.Wout van Aert is scheduled&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85,58412],"class_list":{"0":"post-333565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-wout-van-aert"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}