{"id":346651,"date":"2025-12-15T11:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T11:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346651\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T11:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T11:55:07","slug":"i-should-have-taken-this-opportunity-thibau-nys-rues-late-crash-in-namur-battle-with-mathieu-van-der-poel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/346651\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I should have taken this opportunity’ \u2013 Thibau Nys rues late crash in Namur battle with Mathieu van der Poel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyclocross world champion Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> hasn’t lost a cyclocross race in almost two years; his most recent defeat came in Benidorm in late January 2024. However, Thibau Nys<\/a> pushed him all the way in Namur on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Dutchman was making his season debut at the fourth round of this year’s UCI World Cup<\/a>, overcoming an early crash to eventually cross the line solo for the 110th victory of his career. Nys followed home in second, nine seconds down, two up on Michael Vanthourenhout.<\/p>\n

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But Nys had been closer to glory than the final results suggest, with the 23-year-old former European champion leading and putting the pressure on at the midway mark and later sticking with Van der Poel as his rival launched several attacks.<\/p>\n

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Nys clung on, but a mistake on the final lap \u2013 a crash on a descent \u2013 saw him fall out of contention, leaving Van der Poel clear to race off for another victory.<\/p>\n

“Without my slip-up on the last lap, I wouldn’t have been dropped,” Nys said later, according to Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I would have preferred to be beaten on power, not like this. But the fault is mine; I should have taken this opportunity. Because of that crash, I feel like I couldn’t ride the final.”<\/p>\n

Nys, who had racked up three wins in a row heading into the race, including at the World Cup meets in Tabor and Flamanville, explained that he had the legs to make a move in the final but wasn’t able to show what he could do thanks to his spill.<\/p>\n

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“My feeling was pretty good; I felt I still had a lot of power at the end. When I was able to follow Van der Poel, I wanted to make an explosive attack afterwards, but my mistake prevented me from doing so.”<\/p>\n

He’ll continue to do battle with Van der Poel as the season goes on, with the world champion set for another 11 races<\/a> before he defends the rainbow stripes in Hulst on February 1.<\/p>\n

However, Sunday’s race might have been a rare golden opportunity to come out on top, Nys acknowledged.<\/p>\n

“This was definitely an opportunity to beat Van der Poel, and I should have taken it, especially since I have a weight advantage here,” he said.<\/p>\n

“In races like Koksijde, with similar weight ratios, it’s always tougher. I’m happy with the feeling, though. We can build on this. Mathieu’s performance will only increase by a few percentage points, but a race like today does offer a perspective.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyclocross world champion Mathieu van der Poel hasn’t lost a cyclocross race in almost two years; his most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-346651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346651","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=346651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}