Thibau Nys looks to rediscover ‘cross form and weighs up Giro d’Italia start

The 2023/24 cyclo-cross season has been a campaign of two halves for Thibau Nys (Baloise Trek Lions/Lidl-Trek), with the 21-year-old dominating the scene before tailing off in recent weeks.

Now, after a re-set and a mini training camp with his Lidl-Trek teammates, the Belgian is aiming to rediscover his finest form with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) all set to enter the fray in the coming weeks.

Nys is also looking at beefing up his road programme in 2024 with a possible Giro d’Italia start on the cards and some choice words for the UCI after the sport’s governing body initially threatened to penalise ‘cross riders for not attending every World Cup on the calendar. 

Read more: UCI follows through with plans to monitor cyclo-cross riders' participation at World Cups

Speaking exclusively to GCN at Lidl-Trek’s winter camp in Calpe, Spain, Nys described how the training camp was planned to breathe new life into his season.

“The camp has been really good. I came here a week early with some friends and rented a house and now to step into the training camp, it’s been great. It’s come at the right moment for me both physically and mentally to be at the top of my game ahead of the last part of the cyclo-cross season,” he told GCN.

Nys was on fire at the start of the cyclo-cross season, winning three of his first five races, including the first round of the UCI World Cup in the US. Since then he’s not taken a single victory.

“The year started super good and it was way better than I could have ever imagined but it then dropped down deeper and faster than I expected. The first part was amazing though, and we’ll try and get that rhythm going again. In the first five weeks of the season, I was dominating, winning three times, and then went more than a month without a win, and it’s mentally a bit difficult. But that’s why we’re here. A proper two weeks of training will be a load of good.”

The task of winning again could prove to be even harder in the coming weeks. Van der Poel, Van Aert and Pidcock are all fine-tuning their form before busy ‘cross calendars in December and early January. Nys isn’t going to let himself be distracted by the possible presence of the ‘big three’ and will instead concentrate on his own preparation.

“To be honest, for the moment I’m only focusing on myself and getting my level back to where I was. Then I can start to think about getting results between those guys. I’m just trying to get my best game and when they’re at races I’ll have to change my goals a little bit and perhaps be happy with a podium or a top-five place. It’s an honour for me to race against those guys, who are bigger than the sport. For me, I don’t mind that they’re going and that most of the time the top spots are gone. I’ll just try and get the best out of myself.”

It won’t be long, however, before Nys’ focus shifts towards the road in 2024. Plans are still being finalised at this point but the young Belgian has a possible Grand Tour debut pencilled in for next spring as he looks to ramp up his road experience.

“We’ll do the full preparation for the Giro,” he told GCN.

“There’s a big chance that I won’t go but I’ll still do all the preparation with the team and do an altitude camp. I’ll start my road season at the Tour de Romandie and see how it goes. If we see the right things in both training and racing then there’s a chance that I go to the Giro. If I don’t go then it’s no problem and I’ll do a really nice programme with other shorter stage races, and maybe the Tour de Suisse. It’ll be a combination of races where I can go for a stage win and maybe even the GC in some of the races.”

© Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images

Thibau Nys has two wins to his name on the road to date

While road will become an ever-increasing element to Nys’ racing, it will not dominate his plans for at least two or three years.

Cyclo-cross remains the young Belgian’s primary passion and even though he is readily compared to the most successful ‘cross riders who have transitioned to the road, Nys still has major objectives to complete before he makes that step.

“The way I see it, things will stay how they are. The comparison will always be made between myself and Mathieu and Wout when it comes to the change to the road but there’s one big difference and that’s that they achieved everything in cyclo-cross. For me, it’s totally different because I still have a lot to prove before I can move on to the next thing. I don’t see that change happening for the next three years. Apart from that, I just like to race a lot of cyclo-cross.”

Battles with the UCI

Those ‘cross ambitions could be affected by the UCI and the governing body’s controversial notions of enforcing all riders to compete in every round of the World Cup in order to qualify for the World Championships. Those threats have quelled in recent weeks after initially being voiced by UCI president David Lappartient, and further dialogue between organisers and riders will be facilitated in the coming weeks, but Nys is under no illusions that the sport needs improving. He readily admits that he doesn’t have all the answers but he is open to discussion.

“To be honest I have no idea. I let them talk. I would like to give a nice comment and conclusion but I don’t have one but it makes no sense what he’s saying,” Nys said in relation to Lappartient’s comments.

“I have the feeling that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. They’ll try and fix the World Cup situation because they’ve slowly started to realise that they’ve been fucking it up for the last couple of years and that’s not our fault.”

Read more: 'The whole system is flawed' – Cyclo-cross riders call for reform amid scheduling drama

“They wanted to expand the World Cup and they made it bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Eli Iserbyt will win the World Cup this year and he’s an amazing rider but 50 per cent of why he wins the World Cup overall is because he rides all of them. That can’t be the case, that you win the World Cup because you ride all of them. He’s the only one who will do it.

"They just have to make a different calendar for the World Cup with maybe fewer races and they need to make sure that the other organisers are getting their dates because they take every Sunday of the cyclo-cross season for the World Cups. I don’t have the correct solutions, I’ve not put my mind to it yet but something has to change.”