The face with which Wout van aert crossed the finish line in Ostend it said it all. Losing the World Cup at home, so clearly, goes beyond the single result: it means to establish the rival's superiority without further doubts Mathieu van der PoelThe Dutchman takes back the rainbow jersey he had put aside at the start of the race: the master of the world does not change, even if things didn't go well at the beginning.
Chin wound
Many will say that Van Aert's defeat was due to a puncture on the front tyre at the end of the second lap, but it wasn't like thatIn the first lap Van der Poel had done his part to "facilitate" his rival, with a bad fall at the end of the lap, getting stuck on a rut on a curve. A nasty slip, which also cost him a dent in his chin, but Van Aert had already gone away on the sand, the fault of a wrong choice of cover by the Dutch national team, so much so that just after passing the finish line, with a 15" gap, Van Der Poel immediately went to change bikes.
The comeback
The comeback began there and materialized before the finish line also thanks to the Belgian's technical injuryWould it have gone the same way without it? Most likely yes. Van der Poel was flying, so much so that the partial in the second lap was the best of the entire race.
«The path has changed and it is got a little faster on the beach part and this helped me – explained the Dutchman, who won his fourth professional title – my legs were getting better and better and I regained confidence. Wout's puncture was certainly a stroke of luck for me., but even when he was far away I didn't think it was over, quite the opposite."
Van Aert down
Van Aert didn't take it very well: «The puncture required too much effort before and after changing bikes – he said – but it didn't have that much of an impact. I'm a little disappointed in myself, I didn't react as I should and could have, I let myself go especially in moral terms, I lost a lot before crossing the finish line».
Here comes Aerts again
The race, after a quarter of its development, was practically over. Van der Poel was gaining more and more, because on the sand he no longer had any brakes and indeed His balance skills allowed him to pedal for even more metres than his rival.
The real battle was developing behind and it seemed to be the prerogative of the British Pidcock, as often happened this season in front of the Belgian cloud. But this time Toon Aerts, at the main moment of the year, remembered his coat of arms and, also thanks to a hitch that occurred to Her Majesty's subject, he went to overtake him on the 7th lap, gaining a handful of seconds that he defended tooth and nail until the finish line.
Azzurri doubled
The Azzurri? The Italian team had a dull race, partly due to a setback at the start (the same climb where the French had blocked Baroni in the U23 women's race, costing her precious seconds). without then finding the opportunity to recover, so much so that they ended up lapped, exactly like last Sunday in Overijse. The best was Bertolini, 23rd ahead of Dorigoni. We could honestly have expected more, while the old ex-world champion Stybar made a good impression, 18th at 5'42” after picking up the cyclocross bike he had abandoned for years…
