Wout van Aert has announced that he will not be attending the Fayetteville World Championship. This announcement came out just after Mathieu van der Poel has announced that he was pulling out for the rest of the cyclocross season due to injury.
Van Aert did clarify that this decision was not influenced by Van der Poel dropping out. He knew that he would not be attending Fayetteville for a while now, stating he wanted to focus on the spring series.
He hopes that the extra time he gets from not traveling to America and racing will boost his performance during the spring series. With a heavy heart, he announced the news after his victory at the 2022 X²O Trofee Herentals.
“It has always been the intention to skip the World Cup. But it turned out to be a harder choice than expected. A decision with a heavy heart,” – Wout van Aert.
An announcement of @WoutvanAert on the World Championships CX in the USA. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/Z9FXarpvBC
— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) January 5, 2022
With two of the Big Three missing from Fayetteville, the crowd’s favorite looks to be Tom Pidcock. However, he has strong competition against Eli Iserbyt, Michael Vanthourenhout, Quinten Hermans, Toon Aerts, and Laurens Sweeck.
Read the full story here.
Read more about Mathieu van der Poel dropping out for the rest of the season.
