Kevin Pauwels wins UCI Cyclo-Cross World Cup #4 as Sven Nys finished second
Kevin Pauwels of Team Sunweb-Revor showed a tremendous performance in the fourth round of the Cyclo-Cross World Cup 2011 held at Igorre, Spain last week. Pauwels secured the first position as he set the fastest time of 1 hour 2 minutes and 31 seconds.
The Belgian cyclist, Sven Nys, could not match the likes of Pauwels but his performance was good enough to earn him a second place, as he finished 45 seconds behind Kevin.
The top four positions were dominated by Belgian cyclists, as Tom Meeusen was 59 seconds behind at the third spot and Bart Aernouts finished 1 minute and 6 seconds behind the race winner.
Pauwels commented on winning the event, “I’m pleased with this win. The course is harder than the one in Tabor so this is a nice win. Things are looking good for me now in the World Cup. I’ve got a good chance to win it”.
Both the top two Belgian cyclists had a close encounter but Pauwels finished the race with flying colours.
Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Revor) and Francis Mourey (FDJ) tried to follow the winning bunch but they failed to uphold their pace and were soon dropped.
Meanwhile, Nys, Pauwels and Zdenek Stybar (Quick Step Cycling) launched counter attacks. Nys and Pauwels continued their lead as Stybar lost crucial time on them.
With a few kilometres to go, Nys punctured while Pauwels moved ahead. In the next lap, Nys regained momentum and came back with a deficit of 4 seconds, which again increased to 9 seconds.
Nys told the media, “I was able to ride faster for a brief moment but soon after that you have to pay the price. I couldn’t close the gap down. If you keep pushing for too long then you might come to a complete standstill and then my second place was in
danger”.
Pauwels took the overall standing with 300 points, while Nys was in the second place with 285 points.
Stybar secured the third positin with 250 points as Bart Aernouts landed in the fourth place with a total number of 221 points.
The next World Cup race is scheduled to be held in Namur, Belgium, which includes sharp citadel slopes, as riders are already gearing up for the event.
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