Wout van Aert has not raced cyclocross since his ankle fractured in Mol on 2 January, the crash that cut short his 2025-26 winter campaign. Ten months on, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider is edging toward a return, but the shape of his schedule is still being drawn in pencil.
The pressure is grid-related, not form-related. Van Aert currently sits 62nd in the UCI cyclocross rankings, and De Clercq has explained to Cycling Up To Date that getting Van Aert selected for Ostend is the easy part.
“The wildcard he needs to be selected is no problem in itself,” De Clercq told the outlet.
Earning a front-two-rows start is the sticking point. For a three-time world champion, a back-row grid on a short, technical cyclocross course would turn an Ostend tilt into damage limitation. De Clercq put the required minimum at four World Cup rounds this winter.
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‘Give me another three weeks’
Van Aert’s own public line has been studiously non-committal. Speaking at a sponsor event in late October, he told Het Laatste Nieuws that he was not ready to lock in a programme.
“Give me another three weeks to see where my fitness stands and how much more training I’ll need before I’m race-ready,” he said to the newspaper.
Visma-Lease a Bike begins a training camp in Spain on 8 December, which makes Ruddervoorde on 6 December the earliest realistic opener. From there, the Belgian calendar stacks up quickly, with Antwerp and Koksijde on 19-20 December and further rounds at Gavere, Namur, Besançon and Zonhoven running into January.
Van Aert has indicated to Het Laatste Nieuws that his programme is likely to settle at around eight races, with no commitment yet to a specific list.
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Ostend, six years after an empty Worlds
The UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships return to the Belgian coast on 29-31 January 2027, with the Elite Men’s race scheduled for Sunday 31 January. Van Aert raced the previous Ostend Worlds in 2021, but behind closed doors; the event was staged under pandemic restrictions with no spectators on the course.
“A World Championship in my own country is more appealing than one that’s far away. I already raced in a World Championship in Ostend in 2021 without an audience, and I’d love to experience it with a huge crowd,” Van Aert told Het Laatste Nieuws.
A fourth rainbow jersey is a long shot. Mathieu van der Poel is the benchmark in the discipline, and De Clercq has said the plan is to wait and see how Van Aert’s form develops across the busy festive block, and whether he can line up in Ostend with a realistic chance of winning the title.
The first start that would put real numbers on any of this is Ruddervoorde on 6 December.
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