Home > Cyclocross

Toon Aerts triumphs at Jingle Cross

Two World Cup victories on the trot for the Belgian

September 29, 2018
Share on SMS

Like last week, the elite men’s race in the second round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup at Jingle Cross in Iowa was one between triple world champion Wout Van Aert and Toon Aerts. Once more Aerts prevailed, taking advantage of a Van Aert error on Lap 6. Again, the Cup holder Mathieu van der Poel was not on the start line.

The Course

The elite men would ride eight 3.1-km laps. The sun worked hard at drying up the course after rain during the week, but Mount Krumpit was still mucky.


Canadians
Canadian champion Michael van den Ham, who was 29th last week, lined up in Iowa City alongside Trevor O’Donnell, Gunnar Holmgren, Nicolas Diniz, Isaac Niles and Cameron Jette.

Early Laps

Lars van der Haar grabbed the hole shot but Wisconsin winner Aerts took over in his World Cup leader’s jersey. Everyone carried up Mount Krumpet because of its peanut butter mud. Aerts continued to lead with Van Aert right behind him. Van Aert then assumed the lead when Aerts went very wide in a turn. Traction was at a premium.

The duo of Aerts and van Aert went into Lap 2 with a gap of seven-seconds over their closest chasers. Van den Ham was the top Canadian in 39th.

Michael Vanthourenhout and Quintin Hermans were in the podium spot behind the leading duo, 19-seconds in arrears after two laps, Van Aert having survived problems with one of his shoes. Van den Ham was up to 35th.

Going into the fourth lap, Toon made a bike change. Van den Ham popped into the top-30. Midway through the race, Vanthourenhout and Hermans were still 24-seconds behind the leaders and 37-seconds ahead of the next riders. Both Aerts and van Aert took new bikes going into Lap 5.

Second Half

Vanthourenhout pulled out a little gap over Hermans on Lap 5, but Hermans returned to him by the end.

At the beginning of Lap 6, the world champion got bumped around by the ruts and fell back a bit. Aerts began to hammer. Van Aert flung off his glasses. Entering the penultimate lap, Aerts held a 17-second lead.

When he heard the bell, Aerts was up by 24-seconds. Vanthourenhout had to hold off Hermans only seven-seconds behind. After several laps at 29th, van den Ham moved up to 28th.

Aerts, who had never won a World Cup elite men’s race until last week, is looking very impressive in the early part of the season.

The Canadians were all lapped.

The next World Cup event is in Bern, Switzerland on October 21.

UCI Cyclocross World Cup Round 2, JingleCross, Iowa, Elite Men
1) Toon Aerts (Belgium/Telenet–Fidea Lions) 1:02:28
2) Wout van Aert (Belgium/Independent) +0:52
3) Michael Vanthourenhout (Belgium) +1:16