{"id":656406,"date":"2025-12-26T18:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T18:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/656406\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T18:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T18:58:13","slug":"without-that-mistake-it-would-have-been-a-sprint-mathieu-van-der-poel-reflects-on-gavere-duel-with-thibau-nys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/656406\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWithout that mistake, it would have been a sprint\u201d \u2013 Mathieu van der Poel reflects on Gavere duel with Thibau Nys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/mathieu-van-der-poel\" title=\"Mathieu van der Poel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> admitted that a single moment proved decisive in his <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/cyclocross\/results-world-cup-gavere-mathieu-van-der-poel-makes-it-six-in-gavere-after-decisive-late-move-against-thibau-nys\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">latest victory at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup Gavere<\/a>, suggesting the race could easily have been settled in a sprint without a small error from <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/thibau-nys\" title=\"Thibau Nys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thibau Nys<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was difficult to make the difference,\u201d Van der Poel said in his post-race interview. \u201cThibau was really strong. I honestly didn\u2019t expect that I would be able to drop him. After Nys launched his attack, I decided to really ride one lap all out. He made a small mistake in the wheel, which gave me the space. Otherwise, I think it would have been a sprint.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Van der Poel and Nys had been locked together for much of the race, with repeated accelerations on the Gavere climbs failing to create separation until the decisive moment.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Van der Poel\u2019s comments underlined how fine the margins were after a race defined by pressure rather than constant attacks.<\/p>\n<p>World Cup context and Nys reactionThe world champion also addressed speculation about a possible appearance at the next <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/uci-world-cup\" title=\"World Cup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Cup<\/a> round in Dendermonde. \u201cWe did have doubts,\u201d he said. \u201cBut after talking it through, we decided to stick to the plan. Normally, I won\u2019t be starting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite his victory, Van der Poel narrowly missed out on taking the World Cup leader\u2019s jersey. Laurens Sweeck finished eleventh in Gavere, but retains the lead by a single point, sitting on 161 points to Van der Poel\u2019s 160 after four wins this season. Van der Poel will not be present in Dendermonde on Sunday, where both Nys and Wout van Aert are expected to start.<\/p>\n<p>Nys, meanwhile, was upbeat despite the error that ended his winning hopes. \u201cI enjoyed it,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cI wanted to ride my own race and not have regrets afterwards that I\u2019d been too passive. Quite early on, I already felt that I couldn\u2019t really push Van der Poel to his limit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the final laps I had to focus on holding the wheel, but on the lap where he went, I missed my pedal twice. Even without that mistake, I probably wouldn\u2019t have been able to follow him. The fatigue was definitely there at the end. I had very cold feet and maybe didn\u2019t really know what I was doing anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With both riders acknowledging how evenly matched the duel had been, Gavere once again highlighted how little separates control from chaos on one of the calendar\u2019s most demanding courses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mathieu van der Poel admitted that a single moment proved decisive in his latest victory at the UCI&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,184548,10102,79,186370,16,15,1514,200229],"class_list":{"0":"post-656406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-cyclocross","10":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-thibau-nys","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-world-cup","16":"tag-world-cup-gavere"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115787405911931461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656406","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=656406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}