Road cycling is on. The big dates of the course are still far away, but yesterday there was already a sufficiently wide repertoire to make mouths. In Australian time, the Tour Down Under launched the World Tour with the local victory of Jay Vine and the third step of the podium for Pello Bilbao. Good start. Then, in European time, the Clásica de Valencia opened the Spanish calendar to the sprint, with the victory of Arnaud de Lie. And later on, In Argentina, the Vuelta a San Juan started with Remco Evenepoel and Egan Bernal among its illustrious entries. The road is already in contention, yes, and it won’t stop until mid-October, but The eyes of the fans pointed this Sunday to another specialty, cyclocross, which held the last round of the World Cup in Benidorm, with the best possible participation. Eleven years ago, since Igorre 2011, Spain did not welcome the elite of a modality that drags masses in Belgium. The return was splendid.
Some 13,000 spectators came to the circuit. Many of them, among the Spanish, had never seen a cyclocross. Others, the Europeans, go on vacation on the Costa Blanca. Great move to take him there. But the best thing was the dream outcome, the fight between Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, the two aces of the discipline, to resolve a finish that the latter opted for, who thus broke the streak of three consecutive victories, and eight in total. , which accumulated the Belgian. Thomas Pidcock, the third tenor, also ran, who closed his cross-country season with a fifth place. On February 5th he will not defend the rainbow. All three are also road stars. That’s one reason for the worldwide rebound in cyclocross. But there is another. Although the specialty sounds classic, and it is, the format adapts to current tastes: only one hour of racing, full of intensity. The past dazzles the present.