{"id":609153,"date":"2025-12-03T08:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/609153\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T08:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:13:15","slug":"he-can-fill-tom-pidcocks-place-in-the-three-way-battle-thibau-nys-backed-by-belgian-national-coach-to-match-van-aert-van-der-poel-this-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/609153\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;He can fill Tom Pidcock&#8217;s place in the three-way battle&#8221; \u2013 Thibau Nys backed by Belgian national coach to match Van Aert &#038; Van der Poel this winter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former world champion <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/bart-wellens\" title=\"Bart Wellens\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bart Wellens<\/a> echoed that optimism, while warning against excessive pressure on the 23-year-old. Wellens argued that Nys may not yet be ready to beat Van der Poel outright, but has reached a level where he can genuinely disrupt the world champion\u2019s dominance when the parcours suits him.<\/p>\n<p>Wellens said: \u201cHe\u2019s maybe not going to win against Mathieu, but he will make it difficult for him. According to me, Nys should make it a goal to be the first to finally beat Mathieu. That would only be an honour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The suggestion that Nys could aim to become the first rider in years to topple Van der Poel in a straight, peak-form confrontation underscores how highly the sport\u2019s leading Belgian voices now rate his potential.<\/p>\n<p>De Clercq\u2019s and Wellens\u2019s comments also mark one of the clearest public endorsements yet that Nys is no longer considered simply a promising young rider \u2014 but a genuine threat capable of shifting the balance at the very front of elite cyclocross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world champion Bart Wellens echoed that optimism, while warning against excessive pressure on the 23-year-old. Wellens argued&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4104],"tags":[186689,4230,184548,10102,79,186370,16153,16,15,34351],"class_list":["post-609153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-bart-wellens","tag-cycling","tag-cyclocross","tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","tag-sports","tag-thibau-nys","tag-tom-pidcock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wout-van-aert"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115654636542972130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}