Sauce Dramedy Continues with Speculation about Sweeck's Future with Pauwels-Sauzen
Everybody appears to be on board with Sweeck becoming a Tormans Triplet except the vaunted Sauce Bauce.
Laurens Sweeck is perhaps the most intriguing rider in the Elite Men’s cyclocross field today. At least when it comes to the greater CXHairs media empire.
I am not going to do the math, but I would guess that short of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and maybe Tom Pidcock, Sweeck has had the most words written about him in the publications of the CXHairs media conglomerate and spoken into the microphones in the Cyclocross Radio Media Pit recording studio during the past two seasons.
Why is Sweeck so intriguing? One big reason is that although the query about his Eliteness will be debated until the day he retires, Sweeck has shown that he is a rider capable of WINNING BIKE RACES. Yes, the conditions have to be favorable and he needs to have his ish together, but how many riders outside what we’ll call the Big Four (MvdP, Wout, Pidders, Eli) can you count on to bring home dubs for their respective teams?
Toon Aerts? Sure. Michael Vanthourenhout? This was his big year, and he won exactly three races—one of them in Switzerland. Lars van der Haar? Love him, but no.
Here’s a fun one—behind MvdP and Wout, who is the third-winningest rider in the Elite Men’s field in the last five seasons? If I told you it is Laurens Sweeck, would you believe me? (FTR, I certainly did not believe me)
After Van der Poel’s *checks notes* 119 wins, Wout has 36, and then Sweeck comes in third at 19. Rounding out the top 5 are Toon Aerts with 18 and then Eli Iserbyt with 17. Iserbyt obviously deserves an asterisk because he has achieved all of those wins in the last two seasons, but we will get to that soon enough.
Three of the last five seasons, Sweeck has won at least four races, and he is coming off his best two seasons where he won five this season and six in the 2019/20 campaign. With Sweeck coming into the prime of his career, it’s safe to say that right now, he is a rider good for about five wins a season, at least.
All the other riders who have dub potential like Sweeck are the featured pieces of their respective teams. Mathieu van der Poel is Mathieu van der Poel, Wout is Wout, Pidders is Grenadiering, Aerts is the leader of the Lion pride, and Iserbyt is the featured supreme Sauce.
Sweeck, meanwhile, has been the bystander in a thick, vinegary drama that has consumed the vaunted Pauwels-Sauzen superteam the past two seasons.
Prior to the start of the superteam era (birthday: September 2019, death: November 2019; rebirth: October 2020, redeath December 2020), Sweeck and Iserbyt were not teammates. Sweeck was on the ERA-Circus real estate carnies and Iserbyt was on the Marlux-Bingoal mason bookies. (The Sauces and The Lions admittedly flows off the tongue so much better). When the merger happened, Iserbyt was the young gun coming off 2 U23 World Championships in 4 years while Sweeck was looking to make his mark in the Elite cyclocross world.
Us North American media folk are obviously not privy to the inner gossip of the top Belgian cyclocross teams, but from the outside, it sure looked like Iserbyt was hellbent on establishing himself as the most exquisite of Sauces from the start of the 2019/20 season. Iserbyt crushed Toon Aerts at both U.S. World Cups in 2019 and hit the European calendar running by ripping off win after win.
It was at the Jingle Cross World Cup that the famed IserBEEF was born when Iserbyt, midrace, went off on Sweeck for dragging a group of riders back to him. From there, the Sauces’ internal politics were a major storyline of the season as Michael Vanthourenhout played the loyal teammate, while Sweeck tried to find his way as a supporting rider who also wanted to win bike races. The IserBEEF again reared its head at Diegem that year when Iserbyt again called out his teammate for taking away his shot to try and catch Mathieu van der Poel (FTR, Iserbyt was definitely not going to catch Van der Poel).
All of this is to say that even though Sweeck ended up winning the Belgian Tricolore at Floaty Cross last January, his tenure during the first year of the Sauces was very tenuous when it came to how he fit in on the Iserbyt-led team.
This season, the IserBEEF seemed to be much more well done than rare and juicy. At least up through the post-Worlds period.
Iserbyt won a bunch of races early in the season, Sweeck had a two-race run at Superprestige Niel and GP Leuven, then Vanthourenhout won a couple races, then we completely forgot about the Sauces because MvdP, Wout, and Pidders.
Sweeck came on strong toward the end of the season, finishing fifth at Worlds and then winning three races in the post-Worlds denouement to the season. However, it was at one of those post-Worlds wins that we got to see some of the Sauces internal strife boil over in the biggest way.
Entering the final Superprestige race at Middelkerke, Iserbyt still—in theory—had a chance of catching Aerts for the series overall. Aerts, for his part, added to the drama by racing like butt and dangling back in fifth or sixth place, leaving the door open for an Iserbyt win to give him the Superprestige championship belt. Iserbyt, for his part, was also racing like butt, and even though Sweeck and Vanthourenhout slow-rolled it at times, Iserbyt could not keep pace.
At one point in the race, the Sauce Bauce (pronounced “Boss”) Jurgen Mettepenningen literally leaned over the course tape to yell at Sweeck for not waiting for the hapless Iserbyt. Sweeck, to his credit, went on to win the race and dedicate it to one of his in-laws who had passed away that week. Since we are obviously pro-Sweeck here at the Bulletin, even though there was all that being a good teammate stuff and whatnot, what exactly was Sweeck supposed to do? Carry Iserbyt over the line?
While the beef was exciting, in retrospect, it seems like some sort of point—a tipping point, if you will—in the Sauce dramedy had been reached.
A Movement Grows
If you’ve followed us long enough, you know that Bill and I are both huge hoops fans, and if the NBA excels at one thing better than any other league in the world, it’s the drama surrounding offseason player signings and trades. This year, we spent some time musing about what cyclocross could be like if there was more offseason kvetching about riders who are unhappy, teams looking to make moves, and even potential trades.
At the center of these speculations has, not surprisingly, been Sweeck. As we have established, he is not a good fit for what the Sauces are doing, he is clearly unhappy, and he has the potential to be another team’s centerpiece rider. Cyclocross does not have the 30 teams of the NBA, so it was easy to hone in on the Tormans team as a potential destination for Sweeck. While Quinten Hermans did finish the season strong (and win as many races as Tom Pidcock this season!), he has not yet shown he can be a guy who has the third-most number of wins in the Elite Men’s field in the last five years (I am still not over that stat).
Ask, and ye shall receive, they say.
Earlier this week, news broke that the aforementioned Tormans squad is acquiring Sweeck to potentially form the Tormans Triplets with Sweeck, Hermans, and Corne van Kessel. As reported in Sporza, it sounds like Sweeck is on board as well.
“Laurens would very much like to ride with us. Then we can also win a few more crosses," Tormans team sponsor Jan Tormans said.
Sweet. Sweeck is on board. Tormans is on board. The Sauces have Ryan (don’t call me pony) Kamp to step up as another supporting rider for Iserbyt. Done deal, yeah?
Not so fast, my friend, says the vaunted Sauce Bauce.
“I have already spoken with Laurens Sweeck and also with Jurgen Mettepenningen. They are willing, but Mettepenningen says: ‘I would like Laurens to cancel his contract with us.’ We will try to find a middle ground.” Tormans added.
Even with the Sauce Bauce looking to get paid for the black sheep of his collection of Sauces, Tormans’ comments suggested there is some potential for Sweeck leaving the Sauces and getting to don the neon accentuated kit of the Tormans team this fall.
Not so fast, but for real this time, my friend, says the vaunted Sauce Bauce.
You don’t have to speak Dutch to get the jist of what the Sauce Bauce is saying here. Unless something drastically changes, Sweeck is going to be a Sauce for the 2021/22 season. At the same time, follow an NBA offseason, and you’ll quickly find out bluster is part of the show, so for the Sweecktimists out there, this tweet could be empty nothing, the mayonnaise of the Sauce Bauce’s arsenal, if you will.
Stepping back, part of why we have been banging the drum for Sweeck to get out of Sauceville is his existence on the team makes little sense for anyone. Last season, one could argue that he gave them a third piece to go up against the Lions, but with Kamp emerging as a future star, it seems like the perfect opportunity for him to become a complementary piece to mix it up early in races and gain valuable experience. The Sauces would still have two riders to compliment Iserbyt, Sweeck would be happy, and the team would be without the inter-team drama that spilled out onto the course at the end of this season.
Fans would benefit from having a third strong team for the first half of the season—until Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Pidcock start their respective seasons. This season, Hermans showed he can start strong, and if his health is on point this offseason, him and Sweeck could provide a formidable duo to go up against Eli and his Sauces and poor all-alone Toon Aerts.
Time will tell if Sweeck is able to free himself from his bad Sauce situation, but we here at the Bulletin are fully on board with Sweeck getting the chance to do his thing as the featured rider among the Tormans Triplets (patent pending).
Sweet take. I saw these grumblings in my FB feed from the Belgies; however, I was unclear as to where Sweek might go. I would rather him be a Lion than a high lighter. Then again there are few second acts in Cox, so he best strike while he can.