Wout van Aert has won the fourth round of the DVV Trofee in Essen. Mathieu van der Poel was the most unlucky rider of the day: due to a puncture and a pedal problem, the Dutchman was taken completely ou of contention. Wout van Aert strengthens his lead in the overall standings.

Nowadays, there is a lot of repetition in the reports from the biggest cyclo-cross races.  If van der Poel has bad luck, there is a 99.9 percent that Van Aert takes the victory – and vice versa. The two stars seem to share the races between them. In Essen, the bad luck belonged to van der Poel.

However, it looked good for the young Dutchman on the first lap. He took the lead and immediately put the world champion Van Aert under pressure. But a flat tire threw a first spanner in the works for van der Poel. Van Aert had already taken over the lead and applied extra pressure. Van der Poel had to sit down and a little later it was evident why: he had suffered a puncture. The Dutchman reached the pit with a delay of 21 seconds. Along with Meeusen – who had hit the ground earlier - Van der Poel had to chase.

Kevin Pauwels seemed to be the only rider who tried to follow Van Aert, but for the umpteenth week in a row, he had bad luck. A crash brought him down and left Van Aert solo in the lead. Van der Poel could not really make up his backlog. To make matters worse, he was hit by bad luck for a second time. The Dutch champion lost the pedal and ended on the tube of his bike. That was the knock-out blow. The morale seemed to be gone for van der Poel who was 1.30 behind with four laps to go.

It would be a duel between Pauwels and Van Aert, but the world champion kept a high pace. It was too fast for Pauwels, who only saw the gap to the world champion go out. He had 20 seconds to make up with three laps to go. Van Aert took his tenth victory in Essen while Pauwels was second. Tom Meeusen sprinted strongly to third place.

With the win, Van Aert extended his overall lead in the DVV Trofee. He is now 2.34 ahead of Pauwels while van der Poel is only 9th, 8.31 behind his rival. The next race, the Scheldecross in Antwerp will be held next Saturday.

Result

1. Wout Van Aert 1.00.56

2. Kevin Pauwels +0.18

3. Tom Meeusen +0.36

4. Laurens Sweeck +0.38

5. Toon Aerts

6. Corne Van Kessel +0.40

7. Michael Vanthourenhout

8. Gianni Vermeersch

9. Wietse Bosmans +0.42

10. Jens Adams +1.12

Overall standings

1. Wout Van Aert 4.03.16

2. Kevin Pauwels +2.34

3. Michael Vanthourenhout +3.19

4. Toon Aerts +4.28

5. Corne Van Kessel +4.55

6. Laurens Sweeck +5.24

7. Tom Meeusen +7.04

8. Gianni Vermeersch +8.27

9. Mathieu van der Poel +8.31

10. Jens Adams +8.40