{"id":241079,"date":"2025-11-03T09:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T09:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/241079\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T09:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T09:29:10","slug":"uae-team-emirates-xrg-wont-allow-pogacar-to-race-cyclocross-otherwise-hed-jump-straight-back-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/241079\/","title":{"rendered":"UAE Team Emirates – XRG won’t allow Pogacar to race cyclocross: ‘Otherwise, he\u2019d jump straight back in’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyclocross has long been a relatively international sport, yet it\u2019s still dominated by the Flemish riders. That\u2019s no surprise, given the status the muddy spectacle enjoys in Belgium. UCI official and former crosser Peter Van Den Abeele, himself once a top rider in the field, believes the discipline is heading in the right direction again \u2014 and predicts major growth ahead.<\/p>\n

‘I can see that cyclocross is still very much alive in Flanders, but what pleases me most is that it\u2019s also gaining popularity outside our region,’ Van Den Abeele told Het Nieuwsblad<\/a>. ‘The World Championships in Li\u00e9vin were a huge success. Benidorm has become a real crowd-pleaser, and T\u00e1bor remains a classic. But let\u2019s be honest \u2014 the races in Flanders are still the most successful.’<\/p>\n

One major change is coming to the discipline: from 2026 onwards, cyclocross results will count toward the UCI rankings for road teams. The aim is to encourage more multi-disciplinary cycling \u2014 not just in cyclocross, but also in track and mountain biking. Van Den Abeele expects this to influence road racing as well.<\/p>\n

‘For a team like Visma | Lease a Bike, Wout\u2019s points won\u2019t make a difference,’ he explained. ‘But for smaller teams, it\u2019s definitely interesting. Jayco AlUla, for example, has the mountain bike world champion in their squad. EF Education has even launched its own CX team. These are small steps, but they\u2019re steps in the right direction.’<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"alan-hatherly-koretzky-pidcock\"\/Pogacar not allowed to do cyclocross: ‘Otherwise, he\u2019d jump straight back in’For Van Den Abeele, Alpecin-Deceuninck is the perfect example of a team successfully combining road and cyclocross. ‘They\u2019ve shown that young riders can easily make their debut in another discipline and still grow into top riders on the road,’ he said. ‘What we\u2019re seeing now was already being said forty years ago. Don\u2019t forget \u2014 Tadej Pogacar<\/a> used to be a cyclocross rider too. The only reason he doesn\u2019t race is because his team won\u2019t allow it. Otherwise, he\u2019d jump straight back in.’The Slovenian was actually national cyclocross champion in 2018, and in 2021 he briefly returned to the mud in his home country \u2014 immediately winning in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital. His return to a full cross campaign would undoubtedly give the sport a massive boost. With cyclocross potentially becoming an Olympic discipline by 2030<\/a>, could that be an extra incentive for Pogacar?<\/p>\n

Read on below the video!<\/p>\n

Cyclocross at the Olympics? \u2018Decision to Be Made Before 2026 Worlds\u2019There\u2019s still a long way to go before cyclocross makes it to the Olympic Games<\/a>. ‘The IOC seems willing to drop the condition that a winter sport must be practiced on snow or ice,’ Van Den Abeele explained. ‘A sport that\u2019s held outdoors during the winter might be enough. It hasn\u2019t been approved yet, but it\u2019s not off the table either. A final decision should be made before the Cyclocross World Championships in Hulst (January 2026).’<\/p>\n

‘That would be the final step toward full recognition of cyclocross’, he continued. ‘National federations would then be more willing to invest in the discipline. Right now, too much talent is being lost \u2014 take France, for example. Look at Seixas: a great young crosser who\u2019s being pushed toward the road. Yet Mathieu van der Poel proves the combination is possible \u2014 seven-time world cyclocross champion and still winning the biggest Classics every year.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyclocross has long been a relatively international sport, yet it\u2019s still dominated by the Flemish riders. That\u2019s no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-241079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}