Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot are among the star names setting out on the journey westwards this weekend as Dublin plays host to the ninth round of the UCI Cyclocross World Cup.
Snow was general all over the Irish capital early on Friday morning, though it remains to be seen if the drop in temperatures in recent days will help to firm up a course that had been made very soft by heavy rainfall over the previous week.
The event takes place on the Sport Ireland campus in Abbotstown, to the northwest of the city, and the 3km circuit incorporates part of the facility’s pre-existing cross-country athletics course.
Aside from one section of sand, the circuit is largely composed of grass. In dry conditions, the hills would not pose an undue problem, but if the mud is as treacherous as it was earlier in the week, the tenor of the race could change.
“Even though there is some mud from the rain, it won't be a running race,” course manager Chris Mannaerts of Flanders Classics insisted to Wielerflits. “It will also remain dry towards the weekend."
Cycling Ireland will hold domestic races on the course on Saturday afternoon ahead of the main events on Sunday. In the elite women’s race, World Cup leader Fem van Empel (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) and Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) stand out as the obvious favourites after their duels thus far, while Denise Betsema (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) will also hope to challenge.
Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (Alpecin-Deceuninck) have opted against travelling to Ireland, but their absence is offset somewhat by the participation of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Ineos Grenadiers).
The Frenchwoman returned to action last weekend after a month out of competition, placing 12th at Superprestige Boom before failing to finish at the Antwerp World Cup. The Dublin race may come too soon for Ferrand-Prévot to contest the win, but she ought to be competitive all the same.
Among the elite men, Laurens Sweeck (Crelan-Fristads) leads the World Cup standings from Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), but while they will duel for points, all eyes will be on the anticipated contest between Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos).
Van Aert started his cyclocross season with second place in Antwerp last weekend and, in the absence of his eternal rival Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) this time out, he will be the favourite to claim the spoils in Dublin.
Pidcock, however, has now notched two wins in his rainbow jersey this winter and he looks likely to be Van Aert’s closest challenger here. The Yorkshire man has an Irish agent, and his coach Kurt Bogaerts was previously Irish national road coach, so the Dublin event has an added significance.
“Andrew [McQuaid] set up Trinity Racing around me – and that team and legacy is continuing on now. The way they’ve supported me has been fantastic, so there’s a big Irish connection that way,” Pidcock told the Irish Independent this week.
“I’m taking it as my home race this year. It’d be nice to win but Wout is going to be there so… let’s see.”
The Irish challenge in the elite men’s race will be led by national champion Chris Dawson, along with Dean Harvey and Darnell Moore. In the elite women’s race, national champion Maria Larkin will be in action along with the promising Roisin Lally, who made her World Cup debut in Overijse last month.
The inaugural Dublin round of the Cyclocross World Cup was originally scheduled for October 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the race was also left out of the schedule last winter. At the third attempt, the World Cup finally makes the trip to Dublin this weekend.
A fan zone has been erected near the start-finish area in a bid to replicate a little Flemish atmosphere on the outskirts of Dublin, but however it plays out, this promises to be an event apart.
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