Thibau Nys is a favourite for cyclocross European Championship title: 'That might come back to haunt me'

So the 23-year-old talent is definitely in good shape. However, Nys didn’t have a long preparation period for this cyclocross season: in just three weeks, the Belgian cyclocross champion had to get himself ready for his first races—and also his first goals of the season: the Koppenbergcross and the European Cyclocross Championships.

On the Koppenberg, the Flemish superstar immediately showed he was in top form by edging out Michael Vanthourenhout at the very last moment, after the two had been locked in a thrilling battle on the final lap. Despite being in good shape, Nys made a few mistakes, resulting in a couple of crashes.

According to the rider himself, those mistakes were due to the short preparation time for this cyclocross season. “It’s a lack of being in sync with the bike and the terrain and getting a good feel for everything. I was comfortable on the bike and had control over it. But this is a classic example of how I haven’t spent enough time on the cyclocross bike yet,” Nys said afterward.

Speaking to IDL Pro Cycling , Eric Braes, Nys’s team director at Baloise - Het Poetsbureau Lions, said after the race that his good form had already been evident in training. “We were already seeing signs during training and the metrics popping up online, so you know he’s in good shape. But a comeback like that, against a strong Michael Vanthourenhout—that’s really impressive.”

Braes attributes the strong results and positive signs primarily to his road campaign with Lidl-Trek. “He was in great shape, but who knew how that would hold up toward the end of the race… He’s also got the Vuelta a España under his belt, which is now showing. He’s since fine-tuned his form a bit further.”

"Yes, it all had to happen very quickly. He spent ten days in Japan. After that, it was basically a crash course. Because of the Vuelta a España and those WorldTour races, the bike has gotten bigger. But it all worked out well. He's doing just fine."

"Actually, yes. But now he has to make sure he can keep this up until the World Championships. His advantage is that he'll be taking a few weeks off in December to do a training block on the road. That will give him time to build that training back up."

"The distances he can run, combined with the recovery time he needs afterward."

We also asked Thibau Nys himself to explain that very short training period and how he’s already been able to put in such a spectacular race.

"I don't want to make it sound like I only trained for three weeks and then showed up here. I have the Vuelta under my belt, and I'd been building up to the World Championships. Then I took ten to eleven days off and started cycling again. So this isn't the same as three weeks of off-season. Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t be finishing in the top ten here. But I started back in reasonably good shape, and I knew I’d be in decent shape. Still, I feel like I can improve by a few percentage points to reach my peak.”

"That's hard to say. What you do notice is that after those ten days, you get back into the swing of things pretty quickly, and your body can handle those kilometres again in no time. It doesn't take more than two or three weeks before you can ride your bike for three or four hours again without being completely wiped out. I can pick that up again pretty quickly. But it’s impossible to fit in all the crucial training sessions in two and a half weeks, because you just don’t have the time. That might come back to haunt me in the upcoming races, but I hope I can still improve from here.”

Thibau Nys’s next cyclocross race will be the European Championship in Zeddam, the Netherlands. The Flemish rider is feeling confident heading into that race, as evidenced by the comments he made about his red shorts during the Koppenbergcross. “This might have been the last time I wore the Belgian jersey—if, in an ideal scenario, I can become European champion. So I wanted to go all out,” Nys said about his choice of attire.