Mathieu van der Poel earns 2020-2021 X2O Trofee hat trick
Iserbyt still leads the series with two races remaining
Saturday’s sixth round of the X2O Trofee was Mathieu van der Poel’s first race since January 3, and he bookended the break with wins. Van der Poel has now won three races in the series and earned eight victories this season.
Eli Iserbyt, winner of the first two rounds, was looking to keep his 3:27 series lead, even though he had been nursing an elbow injury suffered in the Boxing Day round of the Superprestige. He finished alongside who was his closest rival on GC overnight, Michael Vanthourenhout. Toons Aert is Iserbyt’s new closest rival.
Iserbyt was prominent at the front with Aerts, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert early on Lap 1. Van der Poel crashed but was soon back in the swing of things.
Van der Poel powered to the front with Vanthourenhout on Lap 2, Iserbyt their closest pursuer and a long line still behind them. Iserbyt was 8 seconds in arrears at the line.
Van Aert pushed ahead of the chasers on Lap 3, although a ditch fall delayed him. At first Vanthourenhout was able to match the world champion’s accelerations, but van der Poel shook loose. Van Aert joined Vanthourenhout and then dropped him. Van der Poel’s gap was 12 seconds at the end of three laps; he found seven more seconds on Lap 4.
Tom Pidcock and Laurens Sweeck emerged as podium threats on Lap 5, as Vanthourenhout fell away.
Going into the penultimate lap, van der Poel had a 15 second lead. Pidcock had 3 seconds on Sweeck and 12 seconds over Vanthourenhout. Van der Poel pitted but Van Aert did not. The lead was whittled down to 11 seconds.
Sweeck left Pidcock behind on the bell lap. Van Aert edged closer to his rival, but the world champion had a lot of real estate to play with.
It was Sweeck’s first podium of the 2020-2021 X2O Trofee. He won a round of the Superprestige this season, with two other podiums in that series.
The penultimate race of the series is February 7.
2020-2021 X2O Trofee, Round Six, Hamme, Elite Men
1) Mathieu van der Poel (The Netherlands/Alpecin-Fenix) 1:05:22
2) Wout Van Aert (Belgium/Jumbo-Visma) +0:07
3) Laurens Sweeck (Belgium/Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) +1:00
