CX Heat Check Power Rankings 12.10.20
Hello Cyclocross friends! It’s Thursday, December 10, and you are tuned in to, I mean reading, the CX Heat Check Power Rankings A/K/A the Original CX Power Rankings. Don’t accept cheap imitations!
Each week we countdown the top 11 men and top 11 women in professional cyclocross. We had just one event this week, the Superprestige Race at Boom. So let’s get into it and see how that race affected the overall rankings.
If you’re looking for a cheat sheet on nicknames, check out last week’s power rankings for some descriptions and definitions. And as a reminder, the number in the parentheses is the number the rider was ranked last week.
MEN TOP 11
11 TOM PIDCOCK: Pidders! Tom Pidcock raised expectations super high with his silver medal finish behind Mathieu van der Poel at the 2020 Cyclocross World Championships. In his return to racing he started off with a respectable top 20 finish at the Tabor World Cup. Respectable, but below our unreasonably high expectations. At Boom, we started to see a little more of what we want from him and a ninth place finish at Tomorrowland may just be the opening act for an extraordinary Pidderspalooza tour.
10 (8) DAAN SOETE: A 13th place at Boom is a bit of an outlier for our maan Daan but it comes only a week after another 13th place at Kortrijk. Daan is one of our top middlers who looked to be making a move into the lower tiers of subtopperdom, but if this down trend continues, Daantaana is going to spend all of his heat check capital and find himself like a Hen locked out of the Container (I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing for the Hen, but it’s late and I’m sticking with the analogy.)
9 (9) QUINTEN HERMANS: The Tormans Twins continue to animate races early. We are still waiting for them to be there consistently at the end. If Quinten were Quentin, I’d say that he started the season as True Romance and looked like he was moving up to Pulp Fiction. Now he’s slipping more towards Hateful Eight territory, and that neighborhood does not include the Heat Check.
8 (6) LARS VAN DER HAAR: Every ebb must have a flow. It’s the yin and yang of ebbs and flows. I don’t know which state is preferable, the ebb or the flow, but Lars van der Haar after looking like he was going to win some races this season has slipped back into middler territory with an eighth place at Boom. A classic van der Yardsale on the planks didn’t help his chances at Tomorrowland and more of that this coming weekend could mean Lars is setting up to have more comebacks this season than Robert Downey Jr.
7 (10) RYAN KAMP: Ryan Champ has been holding down the fort for the young guns until Pidders made his debut. Tom Mein and Pim Ronhaar have been sniffing around the top 10 here and there, but The Champ is definitely the best of the Next Ones. He even has that sweet U23 World Champs kit that he keeps clean in his wardrobe at home. A sixth place at Boom is a nice result and keeps Posh Sauce not only in the mix, but like a drum track on a Metallica album, being pushed to the front of it.
6 (7) CORNÉ VAN KESSEL: As an ignorant American, I always have to double check my work to make sure I get the accent going the right direction on Corné’s name. The Dutch half of the Tormans Twins is looking good. He just needs to hang on to that group a little longer and he’s going to move into podium contention. My bet is that we are going to see Corné step on to at least one podium during the Kerstperiode. [For those new to the cyclocross world, Kerstperiode is a racing block that starts just before Christmas and lasts through New Year’s. In that stretch there typically is seven races in ten days. It’s the greatest kind of insanity.]
5 (3) LAURENS SWEECK: The curious case of Laurens Sweeck. This side of Tom Meeusen, Laurens Sweeck may be the most laid back cyclocross racer ever to pull on a skinsuit. I picture his pre-race routine consisting of lounging on a couch in his camper with the local paper, an espresso, and a Marlboro Red. He gets a knock on the door “five minutes to staging, champ,” carefully folds the paper, gets up, grabs his bike and decides if today will be the day he punishes the field. Or, will today be a good day to let one of the other boys have the glory. Two wins in Niel and Leuven had the Laurens Sweeck bandwagon overflowing, but after a sixth in Tabor (after a nasty crash) and a seventh at Boom, Sweeck is becoming an enigma. A cool, insouciant, enigma.
4 (5) WOUT VAN AERT: Talk about high expectations. We were willing to give Wout a race or two to get back to form, but a healthy Wout without Mathieu van der Poel in the picture was supposed to be winning races by now. Instead, he’s stalling out faster than a mistimed uphill course correction. There was a time when second place and tenth place meant the same thing to Wout. If it wasn’t a win, it was all the same. I want that Wout back in cyclocross. So go get your Spanish training block in, WvA, and we’ll see you on the other side.
3 (4) TOON AERTS: Toon moving up the power rankings from fourth to third is more the result of what Laurens Sweeck didn’t do than anything Toon did do. He looked great at the start of Boom but the Sauces were just lying in wait, biding their time. Once Toon faltered, they jumped. Wout also faltered and Toon found himself on the podium. But he has no answer for Eli or Mikey V, and things are only going to get more complicated once the Vanderpoelstice arrives.
2 (1) MICHAEL VANTHOURENHOUT: I believe that Mikey V is stronger than Eli but he’s such a good teammate he’s picking his moments carefully. You could argue this means he should be in the number one spot, but until he truly believes he’s a number one rider (that’s right I’m in your head, Scary Sauce) then he doesn’t deserve to keep the top spot. Boedi, on the latest episode of the Cyclocross Radio Media Pit predicted Eli would beat van der Poel this coming Saturday. My call is that if anyone beats MvdP, and I’m not saying anyone will, but if anyone does, it’s going to be Mikey V.
1 (2) ELI ISERBYT: Sporty Sauce is getting the attention he deserves. Racing with anger, defiance and a never-say-die attitude it’s hard to know if he’s the Energizer Bunny or Robert Conrad. Eli wants to win at all cost. Sometimes that cost is chasing down his teammates. It’s the ultimate cyclocross cognitive dissonance. We want to scream from the rooftops that cyclocross is an individual sport and that you race for you and you only. Then we get upset when someone does just that. It’s complicated, friends. But you know what’s not complicated? Who’s first in the CX Heat Check Power Rankings. That’s Eli Iserbyt.
WOMEN TOP 11
11 ANNA KAY: Anna Kay has been knocking on the CX Heat Check Power Rankings door and we finally let her in. Tenth place at Boom along with ninth at the Tabor World Cup and eighth at Merksplas show that she’s consistently getting the results that should earn a spot in the rankings. And earn it she did. If she’s in the eleventh spot again next week, remind me to include the jingle “every Heat Check begins with Kay.” That’s some dad joke comedy gold and I don’t want it to go to waste.
10 (8) SANNE CANT: We’ve said it before but it bears repeating: “Het leven is geen ponykamp.” If I ever get a tattoo, that’s going across my back. Another week far from the pony camp lifestyle, Sanne finished eleventh at Boom. She’s right on the edge of getting knocked out of the power rankings, but when you have three rainbow jerseys in your closet and more Belgie Nats wins than you can count, you get a bit of a grace period.
9 (9) PUCK PIETERSE: The 18 year old teammate of Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and Mathieu van der Poel is on a nice roll since winning the U23 Euro Champs jersey. A sixth place at the Tabor World Cup was the eye-opener. The eighth place finish put the rest of the field on notice that she’s not going anywhere but up. Anywhere but the power rankings, that is. For the Heat Check, she’s staying exactly where she is. Locked in at ninth for last week and this one.
8 (6) MANNON BAKKER: Bakker started the season like gangbusters. We couldn’t stop talking about Mannon Bakker, Aneik van Alphen and Yara Kastelijn for the first few weeks of the season. With the salad days in our rear view, however, we’ve been seeing the Credishop-Fristads trio at the front of the race less and less. We’re not counting Bakker out, yet, a ninth at Boom is still a nice result, but her stock certainly is starting to slip.
7 MAGHALIE ROCHETTE: Maghs is back. Is she the Canadian Lars van der Haar? A solid seventh place finish at the climby Boom venue was a nice result for the Canadian and Pan Am Champ. This weekend will be a big one to see if she can keep the momentum going in the right direction. I know the Maghs camp thinks she should be higher in the Heat Check. But if it’s any consolation, The Bulletin is still lagging behind Maghs in the newsletter Heat Check. [Note to Zach, let’s see if we can hire away Maghs’ mom for our French language version.]
6 CLARA HONSINGER: Lil’ Glowplug makes her debut on the power rankings with a bang. Leapfrogging over half of the field and getting the sixth spot from the gun, this may be the fastest start for the US Champ this season. Always the meticulous tactician, Honsinger has been carving her way closer to the front in every race she’s entered. Sixth place at Boom has her on a trajectory that could see even more success this weekend.
5 (5) YARA KASTELIJN: Fifth place last week, fifth place at Boom. I think at this point in the season we pretty much know what we’re going to get from Yara. In the case of the Heat Check, that’s fifth. She’s going to get fifth.
4 (4) ANNEMARIE WORST: Along with Lucinda Brand and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, Worst made up the Snap, Crackle and Pop of the women’s field for much of the season. In the last few weeks, Worst has struggled to find that early form, which has been a bummer. We’ve had some great races so far this season. They are even greater when Worst is up there fighting for the win.
3 (3) DENISE BETSEMA: Goes out fast, finishes second or third. That’s pretty much the story with Betsema. She’s third, here.
2 (2) CEYLIN DEL CARMEN ALVARADO: Dare I say we have ourselves a rivalry atop the women’s field? Pick a side: are you Team Brand or Team Alvarado. There’s no fence to sit on, you have to choose. I mean, I don’t have to choose, I’m an unbiased observer, but there’s no excuse for the rest of you. Prime Time Alvarado has her work cut out for her. She looked untouchable in the early season but recently Lucinda Brand just has her number. Alvarado has looked a little tired in recent races. We may see a training camp in her near future to match what Wout is doing and to prepare for the build up to Worlds. Regardless of her form, she’s always a danger for the win and by the time we do this again, she may be proving wrong every word I just wrote.
1 (1) LUCINDA BRAND: The Brand is winning. Four victories in a row, five of the last six, Lucinda Brand is on a hot streak. The question is “what does it mean" and the other question is “does it really matter?” These wins are awesome to watch and Brand is fuh-lying right now, but the ultimate goal is the gold at the end of the rainbow. Lucinda Brand seems to have one real goal this year and that goal is a World Champs jersey. Winning doesn’t hurt that pursuit. But we still have a long way to go before World Champs. Of course, the way Brand closes down gaps, it may not be as far away as we think.
Photo by yefrifotos.