Last week Kevin Pauwels won the World Cup race on the Citadel in Namur but today he had to settle for second in Heusden-Zolder. "I did not feel good," he told Het Nieuwsblad. "Second place was the best I could hope for."

There was no big battle for the win on the circuit in Zolder where the penultimate round of the World Cup was held. Lars van der Haar was clearly the strongest. When though the gap to Kevin Pauwels was down to just 12 seconds at one point, the World Cup leader was unable to close it.

“In the beginning of the race my brake was hitting the wheel a little bit, but I didn’t dare to change the bike because here you lose a lot of time when you go to the pit. And then Lars was already gone,” Pauwels said. “I felt good, but not super, like in Namur also. Lars was better. You would have to blow up your motor ifyou wanted to catch him. I couldn’t close the gap with my legs….I didn’t see when Lars had his chain drop, I was already too far away.”

"At one point, I hoped that I could catch him but he went too fast and I went at my own speed. Lars is the deserved winner. "

In his own words, Pauwels does not that great legs. "Since I returned from training in Spain (December 19), I've never really had that good feeling. There are still about 10 percent to gain in view of the coming races."

Pauwels is now 80 points ahead of Van der Haar in the World Cup. "Just bad luck or illness can still deny me the victory," says Pauwels. "I hope to keep my lead.

“In the World Cup, I wasn’t really thinking about the classification today, I was thinking about the win, because my lead is so big already. What’s most important is not to get sick before Hoogerheide.”