Marianne Vos is often described as the “Greatest Of All Time”, while her Dutch compatriot Mathieu Van der Poel is also known as the “Flying Dutchman”.
Both lived up to their nicknames and reputations when they won the 2024 UCI Gravel World Championships in Flanders, Belgium, at the weekend. They were not only delighted with their new rainbow stripes, they also revelled in the racing, featuring around 60% of unpaved terrain with a start from Halle and a closing loop around Leuven. Here’s what they had to say after conquering the Forests of Brabant.
Vos on her battle with Kopecky to conquer another discipline
“Gravel is something fairly new but it’s a World Championship so you try to do your best”, Vos says after claiming a 14th rainbow jersey, in a fourth discipline. She opened her groundbreaking tally in 2006, winning her first cyclo-cross and road Elite UCI World titles at 18 years old. “Of course, in sports, sometimes things work out the way you want it and sometimes it’s not meant to be,” she now says.
At 37 years old, the scale keeps tipping towards her, with UCI Women’s WorldTour successes this season in the Omloop Nieuwsblad, Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition, La Vuelta España Femenina by Carrefour.es (two stage wins) and the green jersey of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, as well as the silver medal in the road race of the Olympic Games prior to her gold at the UCI Gravel Worlds.
In Flanders, the women’s race was intense, with Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky, the reigning UCI Road World Champion, applying pressure from the start. “We were actually quite long with a pretty big group, but then on a harder part, Lotte set a really hard pace,” the eventual winner said.
“It was of course nice to be in the front with Lotte but then you know it’s gonna be hard. She’s such a class rider and it was really great to race together here, especially with these crowds.”
Vos tried to get rid of her Belgian rival in the final kilometres but there was no dropping Kopecky on home turf. “I wasn’t confident for the sprint, for sure,” Vos admits, “but of course I also knew it was hard to escape so when I saw I wasn’t going to make it, I decided to wait.” Her patience was eventually rewarded in spectacular fashion.
Van der Poel on why he applied pressure so early
Van der Poel was equally delighted with his new conquest, taking a second rainbow jersey this year eight months after he ruled the UCI Cyclo-cross Worlds: “It’s obviously super nice to end the season like this. It’s super nice to add another rainbow jersey to the collection, in a different discipline as well.”
He took his first UCI World titles as a Junior, before six Elite triumphs in cyclo-cross (2015, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024), one on the road (2023), and now gravel, making 2024 the second consecutive year he takes titles in two different disciplines. It’s an illustration of his versatility, with mountain bike still on his mind as well.
“It’s nice to tick that one off,” the winner said. “Gravel is becoming immensely popular and I do a lot of it myself, so yeah, it’s a lot of fun. It was a super tough race, but I enjoyed it.”
The terrain was challenging, the field was star studded, but he also has to blame himself for the relentless pace that led to massive gaps at the finish.
“I wanted to make the course as hard as possible, because I knew it could create a difficult situation for me if we came with a big group on the local lap,” Van der Poel explains. “That's why I tried to force everyone toward the limit pretty early in the race."
The Dutchman got away with Belgium’s Florian Vermeersch - “we worked well together” - and eventually dropped his final rival to solo his way to victory rather than rely on his speed for the sprint: “You just never know. I have to say my legs hurt too. In a sprint you never know, especially on a gravel bike. That's why I tried one more time on the trickiest part of the course. I ended up alone in front. It's always nice to celebrate like that."