Mathieu van der Poel got here out on prime in his heavyweight showdown with arch-rival Wout Van Aert to say a fifth cyclo-cross world championship on Sunday.
Van der Poel rated the triumph, on a observe designed by his father Adrie, as “one of the top three moments of my career”.
Van der Poel ended Van Aert’s possibilities of victory in a closing dash to cap an impressive three days for Dutch cyclists in entrance of virtually 50,000 house followers at Hoogerheide.
Friday’s six-rider relays gold went to the Netherlands with 24 hours later Fem van Empel main house a Dutch 1-2-3 within the girls’s title race.
Van der Poel was succeeding Tom Pidcock, who skipped the occasion to attend a coaching camp in Spain, making ready for the highway racing season.
The Dutchman revelled within the mud, attacking from the primary circuit, solely permitting compatriot Lars van der Haar a short spell in command.
The two headline acts Van der Poel and Van Aert had already pulled clear on the enterprise finish of the ten laps of the three.2 kilometre circuit.
In an exciting closing duel between the pair on this their eleventh cyclocross assembly this season it was Van der Poel who held the ace card. He sprinted away from Van Aert 120 metres from the road to place a few bike lengths between him and his rival.
Van Aert’s Belgian compatriot Eli Iserbyt took third, 12 seconds adrift.
Van der Poel stated the important thing to his win was “remaining calm throughout the race”.
“We both quickly realised that it was going to be possible to give the other the slip,” he added.
Van Aert stated he had been satisfied “Mathieu was going to try something on before the sprint”.
“I was so focused on that scenario I was a little taken aback when it didn’t pan out like that,” he defined, saying he ought to have tried sprinting for the road earlier “because you can do that on this circuit”.
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