{"id":306706,"date":"2025-11-25T21:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/306706\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T21:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T21:19:11","slug":"wout-van-aert-gives-surprising-cross-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/306706\/","title":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert gives surprising \u2018cross update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wout van Aert\u2019s usual early-December return to the mud looks set to slip a little later this year, according to a report in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hln.be\/wielrennen\/van-de-slimste-mens-naar-de-hel-wout-van-aert-doet-materiaaltest-op-kasseien-van-parijs-roubaix~acb86533\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Het Laatste Nieuws. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Visma\u2013Lease a Bike rider has typically kicked off his <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/cyclocross\/thibau-nys-dominates-chilly-first-round-of-cx-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cyclocross<\/a> block as soon as the calendar flips to December, but the Belgian daily says fans will have to wait a bit longer.<\/p>\n<p>The hold-up isn\u2019t injury-related this time. Van Aert is committed to his team\u2019s first full training camp of the winter, an eight-day block in Oliva, Spain, running Dec. 8\u201316. The three-time world champion has made no secret of how eager he is to pin on a number again, but the Spanish camp effectively rules out an early start.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the end-of-December sand races appear to be his likely landing spot. Het Laatste Nieuws reports that Van Aert, 31, is weighing a return at one of three events: the World Cup rounds in Antwerp (Dec. 20) or Koksijde (Dec. 21), or the X2O Trofee stop in Hofstade (Dec. 22).<\/p>\n<p>All three are classic sand courses\u2014terrain Van Aert has long excelled on\u2014though the team hasn\u2019t confirmed a final choice.<br \/>Van Aert also opened his campaign later than usual last winter, debuting on Dec. 27 after a knee injury from the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. He raced just six times but still managed to win the World Cup in Dendermonde and finished runner-up to Mathieu van der Poel at the world championships in Li\u00e9vin.<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert\u2019s recent cyclocross season openers:<\/p>\n<p>2024: Dec. 27 \u2013 Loenhout<br \/>2023: Dec. 9 \u2013 Essen<br \/>2022: Dec. 4 \u2013 Antwerp<br \/>2021: Dec. 4 \u2013 Boom<br \/>2020: Nov. 28 \u2013 Kortrijk<br \/>2019: Dec. 27 \u2013 Loenhout<\/p>\n<p>Van der Poel still to confirm winter plans<\/p>\n<p>As for his long-time rival, Mathieu van der Poel has yet to reveal his own return date. His full winter schedule will be unveiled at the course presentation for the 2026 world championships in Hulst, Zeeland. Alpecin\u2013Deceuninck team manager Christoph Roodhooft told Sporza the world champion should surface \u201caround Christmas,\u201d without naming a precise race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wout van Aert\u2019s usual early-December return to the mud looks set to slip a little later this year,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,80955,635,82,12290],"class_list":["post-306706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cross","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-wout-van-aert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}