Mathieu van der Poel is expected to make a successful return to cyclocross in Herentals on Saturday, with the current world champion likely to be better than major rivals Tom Pidcock and the rest of the field for the X²O Badkamers Trofee race.
"It was a piece of cake for Wout, it will be a walkover for Mathieu," former world champion turned pundit Niels Albert told Het Laatste Nieuws.
Van Aert won his first cyclocross race of the winter last week in Essen. He will only go head to head with Van der Poel next weekend in Mol, before five more showdowns between the so-called 'big three' during the holidays.
Het Laatste Nieuws studied the record books and, since turning professional, Van der Poel has won seven of his nine of his first races of the season while Pidcock usually needs a few races to find his cyclocross form.
Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Pidcock are focusing on their road race training rather than cyclocross this winter and have preferred team camps in Spain to the cold of Belgium.
Van der Poel showed off his cyclocross rainbow jersey and new white bike in an Instagram video, writing: "Ready to go into overdrive."
The Dutchman is focused on peaking for the cyclocross World Championships in February but his Alpecin-Deceuninck team manager Christoph Roodhooft is confident about his debut.
"I expect a more than decent Mathieu in Herentals. He's certainly good enough," Roodhooft said.
"In the past, when Mathieu started his cyclocross, road or MTB season, he was usually quite close to victory. I expect that tomorrow (Saturday) too."
However, Roodhooft is also looking to the longer term and bigger goals.
"It is important for us that he can work well towards the World Championships. The bigger goal is then another month and a half later at the Tour of Flanders and the week after (Paris-Roubaix)."
