The cyclocross season opened on Sunday without the sport’s dominant name on the start line, and Thibau Nys took full advantage. The Belgian champion crashed twice at the Koppenberg in Oudenaarde and still won the opening round of the X2O Trofee, holding off Michael Vanthourenhout by seven seconds and claiming his third Koppenbergcross. Gerben Kuypers was third.

The bigger storyline was whether Mathieu van der Poel plans to come back to cyclocross at all this winter.

Van der Poel ended his road season on 27 September in Montreal, where he took bronze at the UCI Road World Championships behind Brandon McNulty of the United States and Michael Matthews of Australia. Asked by Eurosport whether he would line up at Il Lombardia the next weekend, the Dutchman shut it down with a laugh.

“No, no. This was my last race today,” he said.

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The road year gave him eight victories, Omloop Nieuwsblad, E3 Saxo Classic and two Tour de France stages among them. “I think I can be happy. Of course, I missed a Monument, but I cannot win one every year,” he told Eurosport.

Nys crashed twice and still won

Nys’s Koppenbergcross victory came in dramatic fashion. He lost around 30 seconds after his second fall before clawing back to Vanthourenhout at the start of the final lap and powering past on the climb. It was his third win on the Koppenberg.

A baby due the same month as Ostend Worlds

Van der Poel has given no commitment on cyclocross. Pressed on his plans by Belgian broadcaster Sporza, he said he had not made up his mind.

“I don’t know if there will be a comeback in the field, so we’ll see,” he told Sporza.

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His partner Roxanne Bertels is expecting the couple’s first child in January, the same month that the cyclocross World Championships are held in Ostend, from 29 to 31 January 2027. Van der Poel is the reigning cyclocross world champion, having taken his eighth rainbow jersey in Hulst in February, and no decision has been published on whether he will defend it on home soil.

Van Aert returns to the mud

Wout van Aert has confirmed he will race the winter. Tom Pidcock is skipping cyclocross for a third straight year.

That leaves Nys, Vanthourenhout and Kuypers to set the early pace of the X2O Trofee until Van Aert joins in, with Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Premier Tech team yet to publish any cyclocross calendar for its leader.

Van der Poel has not named a comeback race.

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