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• Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 7:00 p.m
Interview Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock are also inspiring a whole new generation with their successful combination of racing bike and cyclocross. The 21-year-old Thibau Nys already showed in the Lidl-Trek jersey that he can also have ambitions on the road, but above all that he still has a great journey of discovery ahead of him.
The Aargau Canton Grand Prix and the Tour of Norway may not be the flashiest races, but Nys did impressive things last summer. The young Balenian has a strong uphill sprint in his legs and even defeated Marc Hirschi, Pello Bilbao and Benoit Cosnefroy after a difficult race. It shows that Nys is more than just a strong driver.
“Still, I have the feeling that I don’t yet know what I’m capable of on the street,” says Nys. “I hope that this year I can surprise myself and push my limits again. Maybe I’ll find out that a lot of things are possible, but for now it’s still a question of looking at the coffee grounds. Can I ever win a classic? I don’t dare say that. And can I ever win a stage in a Grand Tour? Maybe a little faster. However, it is currently difficult to make a statement about the long-term goals in the future. Already in the field I had the feeling: Okay, this is possible. I can really grow to the top of the world for a whole season. There is already some progress there.”
Different constructions
In 2023, Nys ignored the big classics and only set goals from the Tour de Romandie at the end of April. He sticks to that. Doesn’t he want to try the classics? “That could be the case. I see myself working in this construction for a long time, but I hope that I can approach it in a different way in the coming years. It could be, for example, that I immediately hit the road after the Cyclocross World Championships “I’ll go and rest later. But I might as well get into cross country earlier and extend my road season to cross country right away.”
“You can interpret it very broadly and there are different formulas that can work for me. Maybe I’ll start just before Christmas and then continue my season until the World Cup, as Wout and Mathieu have done most often in recent years. I don’t know exactly yet, I think there are many possibilities to continue combining the two disciplines. I’ll probably start again next cross season like I did this year. But it could also be that I start a month later within two cross seasons. The amount of intersection and road will always be somewhat divided this way, but the time periods will vary more.”
No Giro?
Nys wants to continue to exploit his strong power in the coming away season – which brought him two professional victories and a European championship title with the reserves in 2021. “I think we’re doing a good job of that. After the World Championships I will give myself two more weeks of rest and then prepare well for the Tour de Romandie. I want to score points straight away. Nothing is set in stone after that. I expect to take part in a number of stage races such as the Tour of Norway and the Tour of Hungary where I just want to compete and win. The Giro is also a possibility, but I’m not blind to it. If it comes, it comes. But I personally don’t believe that.”
The Flemish Brabander naturally comes from the Belgian-Dutch cross world through his father Sven, but that doesn’t mean that he finds the road any less fascinating. “At Lidl-Trek it is a lot of fun and very professional. But I can also really be myself there. It’s serious when it needs to be serious, but it’s important to laugh a little too. It’s a nice group of staff and drivers to work with. The combination with the smaller cross world is fun, where there are suddenly three people in a motorhome in Benidorm.”
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