{"id":363971,"date":"2025-12-22T06:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T06:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/363971\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T06:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T06:19:09","slug":"you-could-say-that-mathieu-is-his-true-love-wout-van-aerts-wife-jokes-about-bond-with-van-der-poel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/363971\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou could say that Mathieu is his true love\u201d \u2013 Wout van Aert\u2019s wife jokes about bond with Van der Poel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cThe duel with Wout has been going on for a very long time\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Van der Poel himself has never hidden just how deeply intertwined their careers have become. Speaking to Algemeen Dagblad, the Dutchman acknowledged that the numbers behind their rivalry are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been racing against each other since the junior ranks, or even before that,\u201d Van der Poel said. \u201cThe duel with Wout has been going on for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Those encounters now span youth categories, elite championships and multiple disciplines, but cyclocross remains the stage where their rivalry feels most deeply ingrained.<\/p>\n<p>Antwerp delivers a familiar script<a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/cycling\/results-world-cup-antwerp-mathieu-van-der-poel-on-top-and-wout-van-aert-on-hold-in-antwerp\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Their latest meeting came last Saturday at the Cyclocross World Cup Antwerp<\/a>, where Van der Poel once again emerged as the dominant force.<\/p>\n<p>Despite starting well back on the grid, the world champion quickly moved through the field before making a decisive early move to ride clear. From there, he controlled the race to take a comfortable solo victory, his second World Cup win of the winter.<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert\u2019s race unfolded very differently. A puncture midway through the contest derailed his fight near the front and left him losing time on a demanding, sandy course. He eventually crossed the line in seventh place, while Van der Poel\u2019s own late puncture never seriously threatened his advantage.<\/p>\n<p>A rivalry with no end in sight<\/p>\n<p>Antwerp will not be their last meeting this winter. Further World Cup clashes await in Hofstade, Loenhout, Mol and Zonhoven, before attention inevitably turns towards the spring classics on the road.<\/p>\n<p>The scale of their shared history underlines why even light-hearted comments attract such attention. As professionals, Van Aert and Van der Poel have already raced each other 149 times in cyclo cross alone, with the total climbing close to two hundred when their youth careers are included.<\/p>\n<p>It is that extraordinary familiarity that continues to define their relationship \u2014 part rivalry, part inevitability \u2014 and ensures that every new encounter adds another layer to a duel that refuses to fade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; \u201cThe duel with Wout has been going on for a very long time\u201d Van der Poel himself&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,124089,77973,85,196867,58412],"class_list":{"0":"post-363971","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-cyclocross","12":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-world-cup-antwerp","15":"tag-wout-van-aert"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363971","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=363971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}