<\/p>\n
With the upcoming sand races, he sees little to no competition for the Dutchman and expects Van der Poel to feel fully at home in the conditions, leading to a much more dominant spell in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
A missed opportunity in Namur<\/p>\n
Wellens\u2019 disappointment over Nys\u2019 missed chance in Namur was palpable. \u201cThibau Nys had a unique chance to beat Mathieu van der Poel, but he let it slip,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he\u2019ll be thinking about it for a long time. That stupid slip up shouldn\u2019t have happened. Thibau will also be thinking to himself, \u2018What an idiot I was to make that mistake.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The slip occurred at a crucial point in the race, with Wellens pointing out that it was the last place on the course where such an error could afford to happen. \u201cIf there\u2019s one corner on the entire course where that should not have happened, it was there,\u201d Wellens noted. \u201cI think it was a lapse in concentration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Praising the effort, but expecting little change<\/p>\n
Despite his disappointment with Nys\u2019 fall, Wellens still gave credit to the young Belgian\u2019s overall performance. \u201cIt was Nys who was closing the gaps on Van der Poel,\u201d Wellens observed. He also gave praise to Michael Vanthourenhout, who was equally up to the task and kept the pace with the leading group.<\/p>\n
However, Wellens does not expect much change in the upcoming races. Looking ahead to Wout van Aert\u2019s return in Antwerp, Wellens feels that the Belgian will not pose a serious challenge to Van der Poel just yet. \u201cWith all due respect to Wout van Aert, the signs are that he\u2019s on the right track, but I don\u2019t expect him to immediately match Van der Poel in Antwerp,\u201d Wellens said. \u201cNamur was exciting, but I think we\u2019re now heading for a few uneventful races.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the upcoming sand races, he sees little to no competition for the Dutchman and expects Van…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[138565,49,48,635,80956,13633,82,121517,13009,146940],"class_list":{"0":"post-350907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-bart-wellens","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-cyclocross","13":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-thibau-nys","16":"tag-world-cup","17":"tag-world-cup-namur"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350907","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=350907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}