Mathieu van der Poel triumphed in his fourth race in six days at Friday’s muddy fifth round of the Exact Cross series in Loenhout, Belgium. It was Wout van Aert’s CX season debut and he came fourth, having crashed on the final lap. Van der Poel and van Aert were supposed to meet on a CX course for the first time this season on Monday in Mol, Belgium, at the fifth round of the Superprestige series, but van Aert grew ill on Sunday. Fabian Merino was the top Canadian in 69th.
Preliminaries
Eli Iserbyt triumphed over the last two rounds. Laurens Sweeck and Lars van der Haar also had victories. Last season van der Poel and Iserbyt claimed two rounds apiece, while Wout van Aert, Michael Vanthourenhout and Thibau Nys all won one. Van der Poel and van Aert had both won Azencross in Loenhout four times.
The Canadian contingent was Evan Russell, Cody Scott, Fabian Merino and Liam Sargent.
Starting from the front row, van Aert claimed the hole shot on Lap 1. Van der Poel was on van Aert’s wheel and Tim Merlier took Position 3. The crowd was charged up for the clash of legends. Van Aert hooked a corner much too wide, allowing Merlier and then van der Poel to take over and push out a gap. The world champion’s lead was only two seconds at the line.
Van der Poel reestablished a gap at the beginning of Lap 2. Van Aert, Niels Vandeputte and Sweeck comprised the closest chase group.
On Lap 3 of 7 Sweeck bolted on his chasemates and lit out after van der Poel. Nys replaced him in van Aert’s trio. Sweeck was soon closer to the world champion than the trio. Sweeck made the junction and this duo crossed the line with a 14-second lead.
With Vandeputte trying to get back on even terms, Nys pulled van Aert at the beginning of Lap 4. Van der Poel shed himself of Sweeck. The man in the rainbow jersey crossed the line seven seconds clear of Sweeck and 18 seconds ahead of van Aert and Nys.
The scrap for third carried on throughout Lap 5. Sweeck was +0:13 and van Aert and Nys were +0:22 going in to Lap 6.
Nys started to press on the penultimate lap and soon there was a trio chasing the race leader. Van der Poel crashed on a tight left hand turn but had a good buffer.
On the bell lap, the trio gave up chasing and starting looking at one another….
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