{"id":253808,"date":"2025-11-09T22:06:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/253808\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T22:06:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T22:06:16","slug":"an-incomplete-but-intriguing-picture-of-a-fledging-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/253808\/","title":{"rendered":"An incomplete but intriguing picture of a fledging season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/corvos-cx-euros-vanthourenhout-1.jpg\" alt=\"CX Euro Champs gallery: An incomplete but intriguing picture of a fledging season\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <a class=\"article__category\" href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article__sub-title\">A guide to who&#8217;s on form \u2013 and what to look forward to \u2013 as the cyclocross season begins to simmer.<\/p>\n<p>                                <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Kit Nicholson\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"author__photo lazy \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/profile-pic-KN-150x150.jpg\" width=\"99\" height=\"99\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cor Vos<\/p>\n<p>The cyclocross season is still young. Since the first opportunities to turn pedals in anger about six weeks ago, many of our favourite CX pros have been emerging one by one from their sun-blushed purgatory, scoring confidence-inspiring wins, and measuring themselves and their training against rivals. This weekend\u2019s European Championships then served as a gauge of form, and a threshold beyond which the season really gathers momentum.<\/p>\n<p>There have been few surprises thus far, but it\u2019s been good to see a number riders demonstrating a return to form after a miserable \u201924-25 season \u2013 Joris Nieuwenhuis, for instance; we\u2019ve witnessed the continuing development for youngsters who are steadily marching through the ranks, like C\u00e9lia Gery; there\u2019s also been the return of a world champion after <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/fem-van-empel-is-going-back-to-cyclocross\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">she retreated from all competition<\/a> this summer; and of course, the likes of Eric Brunner, Andrew Strohmeyer, Sidney McGill, Maghalie Rochette and Lizzy Gunsalus have been lighting things up on the other side of the pond&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>However, several have yet to make their first appearance of the season at all, either through health and fitness struggles, persistent injuries or simply a characteristic delay before launching a short and sweet programme deeper into winter. While it\u2019s a shame to be without the likes of Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, Puck Pieterse, Shirin van Anrooij, Eli Iserbyt, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, the absence of at least two of those names is not all bad; in the dawning of the season, fans get to see the full-timers demonstrate their talents, which are manifold.<\/p>\n<p>With a couple of the major season-long series (X2O and Superprestige) now underway, the typically early-season European Champs are a good place to pause and look around, not to mention place a little more focus on the burgeoning age-group classes, where there is exciting stuff happening. From this point, the season gathers pace towards the World Cup\u2019s commencement in Tabor, Czechia, later this month (23 November), with the thrilling Kerstperiode only just out of sight beyond the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>The big events are all still to come. And now\u2019s a good time to assess the field. Who\u2019s looking good so far this season? And what are the unmissable big races around the corner?<\/p>\n<p>Using the European Championships as the axle, this will be something of a guide as the CX season progresses, and a taste of the coverage that can be expected from Escape Collective where we\u2019ll be producing galleries something like this on World Cup weekends.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/corvos-cx-euros-junior-men-arty.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"  \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/corvos-cx-euros-junior-men.jpg\" class=\"kg-image\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"  \/>What are the CX season&#8217;s big events?<\/p>\n<p>Before we get too deep into the European Champs, let&#8217;s have a quick rundown of the major events to come this season (or you can <a href=\"#european-champs-head-to-the-beach\" rel=\"noreferrer\">skip straight to the gallery<\/a>). For CX purists, there are events worth watching every Saturday and Sunday from mid-October to March, with one or two mid-week races too, but the highest-profile events are found in the UCI World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>            This post is for paying subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#FF6F42\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n<p class=\"reactions\" data-post-id=\"690f90d46f1102a2d5bd1182\">\n                    \ud83d\udc4dYep<br \/>\n                    \ud83d\udc4eNope\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/news-and-racing\/\" title=\"News &amp; Racing\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f293b3 news-and-racing\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News &amp; Racing<\/a><br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/escapecollective.com\/tag\/cyclocross\/\" title=\"Cyclocross\" class=\"tag tag-67a677ae0c7ad49bf4f2911c cyclocross\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cyclocross<\/a>\n                <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News &amp; Racing A guide to who&#8217;s on form \u2013 and what to look forward to \u2013 as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-253808","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\/253808","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=253808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}