Home > News

2017 cyclocross world championships preview

Vos, van Aert and Van der Poel the favourites in Bieles

January 25, 2017
Share on SMS

This weekend sees the climax of the 2016-2017 cyclocross season in Bieles, Luxembourg with the UCI world championships. The weekend will be the setting for another chapter of the two big stories of the season: Marianne Vos’s comeback and the great battle between dynamos Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel.

The course has seen some snow over the past week.


Luxembourger Christine Majerus, who earned three World Cup top-10’s this season, describes the first third of the course as flat grass, then more grass with small climbs and off-camber sections, before a crucial final third that might prove muddy, with climbs, downhills, stairs and a huge off-camber section that leads to the finish.

Saturday is the Junior men, Under-23 women and elite women’s contests, while Sunday concludes the championships with the U23 men and elite men’s races.

Cycling Canada has sent 11-athletes to Bieles, including three national champions. One of those maple leaf-clad riders is junior Gunnar Holmgren, who took 13th in the Namur, Belgium round of the World Cup and 11th in Zolder, where he started in the front row.


The elite women’s race concludes a season in which there was a lot of parity at the beginning, and then Vos returned to put the hammer down. The World Cup series saw wins from Sophie de Boer (The Netherlands), Katie Compton (USA), world champion Thalita de Jong (The Netherlands), Sanne Cant (Belgium) and Katerina Nash (Czech Republic) before Vos came back from almost 700-days out of cyclocross to take the last three events.

Although Cant leads the DVV Trofee and Superprestige series and de Boer earned her first overall World Cup triumph, Vos is the clear favourite to win her eighth title on Saturday. Title holder de Jong will probably not be able to defend it after a bad crash in the final World Cup in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands.


Hoogerheide was interesting for several reasons, not the least of which was Canadian champ Maghalie Rochette’s 18th place in her first World Cup of the season. 2015 national champion Mical Dyck was 30th that day and 14th in Cross Vegas. Cindy Montambault rounds out Team Canada.

All season long Belgian Wout van Aert and Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel have been slugging it out, van der Poel showing up a little late in the season to take three World Cups to van Aert’s four and overall title, five of the six Superprestige races so far and two of the six DVV Trofee contests. When van der Poel doesn’t win a race, van Aert–who missed Hoogerheide with a bad knee–does: Lars van der Haar (The Netherlands) and Toon Aerts (Belgium) are the only riders to break their duopoly in the World Cup, Superprestige and DVV series.

With all due respect to van der Haar, who took a stunning win in Hoogerheide, the elite men’s race will be van Aert vs van der Poel. Toon Aerts, who might have threatened if the Dutch neutralized van Aert, is out with a broken shoulder suffered at the penultimate World Cup in Fiuggi, Italy. Belgians Kevin Pauwels and Tom Meeusen have been very consistent all year.


Canadian Michael van den Ham was 39th in Hoogerheide and 17th at CrossVegas was his World Cup high mark of the season. You could throw a rope around van den Ham and Canadian champion Jeremy Martin in the final World Cup standings: 46th and 48th respectively. The luxuriant beard of Mark McConnell, who hung tough to take the lanterne rouge in Hoogerheide, is the third Canadian to challenge van Aert and van der Poel.