Race Ramblings: False Starts, Stray Wires, and the Van der Poelstice at Scheldecross
Between objects on the course and a lot of heart from Eli Iserbyt, it was an eventful Saturday in Antwerp
A few weeks after Woutmas, we celebrated the Van der Poelstice on Saturday with Mathieu van der Poel’s return to cyclocross at Scheldecross in Antwerp.
The day’s racing got out to a fast start, literally, with Annemarie Worst and Ceylin Alvarado appearing to commit a false start by starting before the five lights flashed green. While false starts are pretty common in say, track and field, they are relatively rare in cyclocross (I cannot remember ever seeing one), in part because the penalty is supposed to be a disqualification. If you look close enough at the screenshot below, you can see both of Alvarado’s feet are on the pedals even though the lights are still red.
Start of Saturday’s race at Scheldecross. Photo: GCN screenshot.
Following the race, there was a decent amount of chatter about the quick start on Twitter, with Christine Majerus pointing out that there are any number of start procedures professional cyclocross uses. For the Potty Cross series, a line of five lights flashes red-red-red-red-red then all green. Riders on the left middle of the grid moved forward when they were all red, thus committing the early start offense.
The ugly start was not done, with a Proximus - Alphamotorhomes - Doltini rider rear-ending Clara Honsinger and causing her to crash into Rebecca Fahringer, thus spoiling good starts by both riders. Given what we know about the opinions of North American fans about certain things in Women’s cyclocross, I guess we can say it was an ominous start to the day’s racing.
Lucinda Brand was back at the front early on, and she took advantage of some troubles by Alvarado to earn an early gap. While we have seen Brand be the rider to erase other’s gaps this season, today, Alvarado and then Worst, Yara Kastelijn, and Denise Betsema were able to reel her in during the second lap.
The Women’s race had another bizarre moment early in the third lap. With Alvarado leading the Dutch train, she struggled on the up part of a kind of down-and-up 180 section. She soon dismounted and spent a good 40 seconds trying to free something, a spoke perhaps?, from her rear cassette. Turns out, it was a steel wire somehow left on the course.
While the Eurosport/GCN feed showed a replay of Alvarado’s incident like three times and cutting to her running with the bike twice, Betsema got what would be a race-winning gap on what appeared to be one of the steep inclines that helped break up the sand Scheldecross is known for.
We picked Betsema as our “Who’s Hot” rider in this week’s preview, in part because we spilt many a digital word on Brand last week, but the choice proved to be prophetic as Betsema rode her gap to a race win. As Bill pointed out in the CXHairs Bulletin glossary included with last week’s CX Heat Check Power Rankings, we have conflicted feelings about Betsema, and based on us having our fingers on the PULSE OF NORTH AMERICAN CYCLOCROSS, we are guessing many of you do as well.
Betsema entered the weekend with the 3nd-longest podium streak in cyclocross with 6 straight podiums. (Her 6 put her ahead of Eli Iserbyt’s 4)
(Lucinda Brand’s streak was 17)
(Mathieu van der Poel’s was 51!)
In fact, Betsema hadn’t been off a podium in over a month, with her last non-podium outing being a 4th-place finish at Euros. As I said in the weekend preview, whatever your feels about Betsema, she is with little doubt the third-best Women’s racer in cyclocross right now, and a serious threat to be a Topper on the next edition of the Topper Chart.
With Worlds 7 weekends away, I think it is fair to start kind of maybe thinking about thinking about Worlds, and it is probably worth pointing out that Betsema has established herself as a bit of a sand specialist at this point in her career. Her breakout win the year she tested positive for steroids was at Koksijde, and she also finished second at Zonhoven that season. With her win on Saturday, she has now won in Antwerp for two-straight times as well.
I bring this up because Worlds is in Oostende, Belgium, which is located a mere 30 kilometers northeast of Koksijde along the shores of the North Sea. Is there going to be sand? Yep, there’s going to be sand.
An early look at the Worlds course shows about a quarter to a third of the track will be on the beach. If Betsema is still riding near the level she is at right now, she will likely be among the select group of favorites for that race.
Worlds course map
The Women’s race at Scheldecross had a lot going on, and as the minutes ticked down to the winter Van der Poelstice, fans were hoping the Men’s race would also be an eventful affair. Last season, we saw Van der Poel struggle to earn several of his wins, especially the ones at Euros and World Cup Tabor immediately following his return. Coming into his season debut at Scheldecross, Van der Poel said he had only touched his ‘cross bike a few times, but he was feeling good about his fitness. On a bad day, Van der Poel might still be a better bike handler than everyone in the world, so that was seemingly an ominous sign for fans wanting a tight race between him and Eli Iserbyt.
One thing that was clear from the start was Iserbyt came to the Antwerp beach ready to give Van der Poel his best shot on Saturday. After Van der Poel slotted in at second wheel behind the Van der Holeshot, Iserbyt rode aggressively to pass multiple Tormans twins and get up to third before riders hit the first long stretch along the beach. Before the end of the first lap, he would then go on to move into first position and make the three-time world champ ride his wheel.
Early in the second lap, the two quickly got off the front, this time with Iserbyt on Van der Poel’s wheel. As anyone who has ever tried to ride the wheel of someone better you knows, every feature becomes that much more daunting and every mistake that much more critical. With Iserbyt appearing to be riding that proverbial ragged edge, Van der Poel got a gap on Iserbyt by cleaning a section of sand while Iserbyt dismounted. MvdP extended the gap to an 11-second lead after
Speaking of false starts …
Van der Poel had a bit of a mishap in the sand on the return trip along the beach in Lap 3 (hey, he’s not a cyborg, he’s human!) and then early in Lap 4, Iserbyt passed Quinten Hermans and went into overdrive in a effort to bring MvdP back. He was successful, and halfway into the race, we had a race.
Back to the whole mistake thing, Iserbyt got up close and personal with a wooden course stake prior to the outbound sand section, and Van der Poel again got a gap. It appeared that now it was time to engage the anything-can-happen-in-cyclocross signal.
Iserbyt, to his credit, showed a lot of heart on Saturday. We’ve been tough on the dude, but at this point, you have to respect just how hard the young Belgian races cyclocross. After Van der Poel got his second seemingly decisive gap, Iserbyt again reeled Van der Poel in and made it a two-man race with a lap and a half to go. Van der Poel’s season-opening win would not come easy thanks to the tenacity of the Euro Champ.
Some riders are able to win cyclocross races with pure fitness—let’s the Brandian approach, more or less—and others are able to win with skill—let’s call it the Burger Time approach—but Mathieu van der Poel is a generational talent, if not one of IDK the top five to ever play the sport because he combines fitness with skill into a cyborgian package.
Saturday’s track featured two steep inclines right before the end of the lap. The first of the twin peaks was steep, but ridable. The second, as far as I can tell, was unrideable for 99.1% of the riders who started the Elite races on Saturday. The 0.9% who were able to ride it—Mathieu van der Poel.
With Iserbyt struggling to hold his wheel coming up on the bell, Van der Poel exploded up the steep climb, keeping enough traction to keep moving forward while producing enough power to overcome the force of gravity trying to stop him. Behind him, Iserbyt dismounted and gave away a few precious seconds. Boom, goes the dynamite, one might say if it were a different race weekend.
Van der Poel was able to ride features others weren’t. Photo: Yefrifotos.be
There would be no dramatic third act for Iserbyt, as Van der Poel celebrated his solstice with his 16th-straight win and 50th in his last 51 starts. After the race, Iserbyt suggested he will be ready to bring it once again on Sunday at Gavere.
With that first big race effort now in Van der Poel’s legs, IDK IDK IDK, but hey, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN CYCLOCROSS.
As much as I enjoy and appreciate WAP networks CX coverage sometimes you all got too caught up with the inside baseball rhetoric. Example above “ given what we know about the opinions of North American fans about certain things in Women’s cyclocross....” why be so obtuse? Is the reference here that our women racers have historically poor starts or something else? The visuals and results certainly speak for themselves that yes starts are a weakness but why the need for mental gymnastics? You guys are good enough to still be interesting without it. And really why do our racers suck so bad at starts?