Van der Poel, god of cyclocross and cycling beauty, performs in Benidorm | Cycling | Kinds of sports

These are Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock. There are three stars, but only one – God, and God is not in the clearing of Foyetes Park, where the buses are parked, and, shining blue in the January sun, the sea below, at his feet. There is neither God, that is, Van der Pol (five world championships), nor…

These are Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock. There are three stars, but only one – God, and God is not in the clearing of Foyetes Park, where the buses are parked, and, shining blue in the January sun, the sea below, at his feet. There is neither God there, that is, Van der Poel (five World Cups), nor Van Aert (three), his usual second. Both dazzling Teflon talents capable of combining relaxation, fun and killer competition will arrive in Benidorm on the same Sunday, possibly by bike. Van der Poel will do it from the home of Cumbre del Sol in Moraira, where he spends the winters training on the roads, and from Coll de Rates, where 90% of the world peloton spend January – and Juan Ayuso, the Spanish angel, Van Neighbor of der Poel tests himself against Pogacar and Van Aert from Denia, from the hotel where he concentrates with his Visma.

The spring of cyclocross, which has not stopped growing in recent years, is supported by the cult of personality of cyclists who, having parked their bikes and sailed quickly through the mud and beach sand, also dominate races on asphalt, gravel, Strade Bianche and Roubaix pavé, the mountains of Flanders and even Mt. The Tour, the slopes, the rainbow on Glasgow’s wet tarmac, the sprints and mountain biking of the Olympics.

On Saturday the park is enjoying Pidcock (the world championship), third in the pecking order in the world of cyclocross, who has been transported, as if in a bubble, from the dark, sunless Flemish lands in which he thrives so well. , has settled in Benidorm for the pleasure of at least 20,000 people in round numbers who, at 20 euros per ticket, will attend the World Cup match on Sunday (15.10, TDP and Eurosport). The experience will be completed by a three-kilometer track connecting two parks (Foetes and Moralet) in the shadow of skyscrapers feeding on the clouds, the Belgian atmosphere. everywhere, beer taps and stalls with chips and dogs, everything except the cold. And the passion of 70 minutes of racing with idols within reach and salivation.

“Oh, the sun, I feel so good,” says the English Ineos cyclist with a plaster on a wound on his nose, which he admits has been quite unwell this winter and was not at his usual height. , and that’s why he stopped competing for three weeks. “Of course I would have liked to have fought in the lead, but it was a real relief to stop because I was fighting a battle that I couldn’t win. I competed every other day and had a dry day in between. I usually ride at 60 or 70 an hour and I can’t go over 40… Other cyclists I’ve talked to have told me that the same thing happened to them, that they’re not sick, but they get on the bike. and I feel very weak. Maybe it’s a variant of covid or something like that.”

Pidcock admits that even if he were very cool, he could not outshine Van der Poel, “a man from another planet, above everyone else”, and Van Aert appears to be unqualified for this winter, in which, as he has repeatedly stated, he didn’t want to give up everything else in cyclocross to steal the light from the focus of Van der Poel, the poet of dirt and sand and cycling that Erik de Vlaeminck was 50 years ago, who has now competed in 10 races on this cyclocross circuit, and 10 he’s won, and that he won’t stop pedaling in the dirt until the world championships in Tábor in the Czech Republic on February 4, where he’ll attempt to reach his sixth rainbow and be just one step shy of Erik de Vlaeminck’s record. Seven . No one doubts that he will win in Benidorm and Tabor and wherever he plays.

“A snake of muscles and acrobatic grace,” as a journalist from L’Equipe astonished spectator of the exhibition of the Dutchman (on Friday the 19th he turned 29 years old), “balancing on the edge of the sand that only he could see”, Van der Poel, world champion on the road and winner in the same wonderful year 2023, also in Roubaix and in San Remo, the grandson of Poulidor and the son of Adri, also a world champion, is so master of his specialty that he seems to be able to decide what advantage he will get over the second and how he will do it, and in spite of everything, everyone loves him, he they envy and adore him, he is calm and perfect on a bike, and even the aesthetics are with him, and the father forces himself to believe what he sees: “He does things that I could only dream of doing,” and that’s if I dared them imagine”. It is enough to see him walking through the parks of Benidorm to rise above mediocrity and think that life sometimes has meaning, to feel what it is like in a museum in front of a work of art or in a forest in front of a landscape of sudden beauty. And those who touch him will always remember him.

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