ebbe nieuweboerI got home late and will be watching with roughly a 30 minutes delay. So I won't be posting play-by-play on the women's #SuperPrestige #CycloCross race in #HeusdenZolder #Zolder today.
Maybe the men's, that depends if I can catch the start live.
Made it just in time for the men's race! #SuperPrestige #CycloCross #HeusdenZolder #Zolder #ProperCross
Course is the same as last year, same as the past several years, although the conditions seem quite good today. So here's the course video from 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibBB9gK5rYA
Course map attached.
2021 Zolder Super Prestige | Course Pre Ride
Pre race interview Pidcock, whose Dutch/Flemish is really improving:
Legs are OK today. He'll try to follow van Aert and van der Poel and see if he can pull off surprise from there. Doesn't want to be third behind those two all the time. So he'll give it a shot.
Pre race
Van der Haar: Overall Superprestige is important, I have to finish before Sweeck. Not too focussed on the classification for now. Yesterday was 17k/h, today is 27km/h avg.
Sweeck: Not specifically focussed on van der Haar, just try to finish as good as possible.
Iserbyt: Happy he's fit enough to start. Running isn't going very well yet. Good race to try to get back into the rhythm.
Vanthourenhout: Normally not his type of race, too fast, but after yesterday's tough race this is actually good. Unpredictable race. You can finish 10th or podium.
Van der Poel, who won something like 80% of his races on Zolder: Feeling a lot better than last year [when he had to abandon this race with back pain]. Happy to have fun power this year.
Van Aert: Wasn't feeling too well yesterday, already in warm up. But feeling much better today. Big change in course from yesterday to today.
So… if van Aert wasn't feeling well yesterday and still gave van der Poel some hard competition… that sure promises something for today!
And… Here we GO!
After two corners van der Poel is already in 3rd position, and van Aert right on his wheel in 4th. Pidcock missed his start and is stuck way back.
Stybar shoulder-checks another rider, who crashes. This isn't ice hockey Zdenek 😂
And as van der Poel takes the lead and attacks off the front, van Aert is still glued to his back wheel. Pidcock will want to start moving up, he's still stuck around 12th to 15th.
Oh, they're clearly both up for it today! Riding their tandem up that muddy hill like it's not even there. And the fans are loving it.
Good to see that van Aert is obviously in good form and is up for delivering a battle, otherwise van der Poel would just dominate and this would've been a very boring race 🤣
Hermans leading the chase now, with Vanthourenhout and Pidcock in his wheel. But barring any flats, mechanicals or crashes there's no way that trio is going to reel van Aert and van der Poel back in. Especially not now that the duo up front are actively sprinting some of the sections, trying to drop each other!
The duo up front has almost 30 seconds now. So that's going to be the two of them battling it out for the win. One small mistake of mechanical can decide it… or maybe we'll have a royal sprint?
In the chase group, Pidcock is trying to drop the rest to secure the lowest podium spot (again), but without much succes for now. The others seems fine with letting him do the work. This is a race that's part of a classification, so for instance van der Haar is aiming for points.
The Superprestige overall is tallied by points (so positions) NOT time as the X2O trofee. So now that 1st and 2nd are as good as gone, the chase group will start battling among themselves for the points. Expect a tactical game in that group, trying to get the others to bear the brunt of the work, as the race progresses.
Few tactics up front though, these two guys are just trying to destroy/drop each other and give the fans a show for their money!
Of course Pidcock is an exception in the group. He's purely riding for that 3rd podium spot. Which explains why the others seem happy to let him do the work, for now. And he must be feeling good enough to take on the challenge and believe he'll end up on top, because he's doing more than his share.
This probably means nothing, but I'm noticing van der Poel is leaving 2 to 3 meter when he's behind van Aert. When van Aert is behind van der Poel, that distance is around 1 meter. But again: Probably means nothing.
Meanwhile van der Haar has caught up with and quickly pipped over Sweeck, which is important for the Superprestige overall lead.
Pidcock attacks and seems to be heading for that lowest podium spot (again).
This battle-a-deux up front is magnificent! This will either be decided by something small, or we'll finally have a sprint finish again!
Hahaha, van der Haar has droped Sweeck and caught up with Vanthourenhout… and is immediately trying to work together with Vanthourenhout to distance Sweeck [his current main rival for the overall] even further. Smart thinking Lars!
And now van der Haar is even riding away, or at least trying to, from Vanthourenhout. Let's see if he can push out his (by now) signature fast last two laps. Pidcock isn't even that far ahead, and the more riders van der Haar can keep between him and Sweeck, the better it is for his overall.
And van der Haar catches up with Pidcock! Even with Pidcock sprinting up the asphalt. If van der Haar can manage to finish 3rd, with Sweeck 6th, that's an excellent score for his overall.
Meanwhile, with one and a half laps to go I still don't see any signs of either van der Poel or van Aert being decisively better than the other. Are we heading for a sprint?
Both the Dutch/Flemish Eurosport commentators don't want to call a favourite either. Let's have a sprint then, we don't get many of those these days! 😂
The battle for 3rd between van der Haar and Pidcock is also very exciting. Pidcock is continuously having to do sport power sprints to catch back up with van der Haar. And we know van der Haar won't drop the pace in the last lap.
We need two live feeds! One with the battle for the win, and one with the battle for 3rd!