Mathieu van der Poel speaks out after World Championship recon in Tábor: "Much harder than I thought"

"It was much harder than I had expected," Van der Poel noted. The Dutchman thereby echoed the sentiment of the majority of the Belgians, who held their press conference on Friday evening and unanimously expressed their expectation for a fair race on Sunday. With Van der Poel in a leading role, of course.

The team leader of Alpecin-Deceuninck - who flew to the Czech Republic on Thursday in a plane full of (Belgian) fans from Eindhoven - trained on the road on Friday. "But I am glad that I have now ridden some laps, because the course was very different from what I had expected. This is real cyclo-cross, it's genuinely much more challenging than I had anticipated."

"It's a fair course, where normally the rider with the best legs will become world champion," stated Van der Poel, who could aim for his sixth world title in the elite category in Tábor. "I feel good and am already excited for Sunday," concluded the Dutchman with words that might not be very encouraging for his competition in Tábor.

Besides Van der Poel, Belgians Eli Iserbyt, Thibau Nys, and Michael Vanthourenhout are seen as major contenders outside of the Netherlands, although they stated on Friday that they would not base their race strategy solely on the top favorite. The Dutch riders Joris Nieuwenhuis, Pim Ronhaar, and Lars van der Haar scouted the course on Friday and had already mentioned last week that they could use Van der Poel as a decoy for the other medals, which are completely up for grabs.