Race Thread

[AmRacer]

Is MvdP the best cyclo-crosser of all time?

If he wins his eighth world title on Sunday there will be a very strong case to say yes. He will have the highest number of world titles and world cup races by then. De Vlaeminck, Van Damme, Zweifel, Liboton and Nys also have a lot of victories, sometimes against more international competition, and generations are hard to compare, but given his sheer dominance, with more than twenty consecutive wins and a victory rate over 90%, completely overflowing the competition, one can say that he deserves the title of all-time best - if he wins on Sunday.

Mathieu races CX part time.

 

[jono]

Is MvdP the best cyclo-crosser of all time?

He will never achieve some of the counting stats of some other riders due to not riding a complete CX season, apart from his early careeer. But the duration of his dominance (nearly a decade) is substantial, and the degree (level compared to the rest of the field) of dominance is unmatched, as far as I am aware.

That makes him the GOAT, for me.

It's purely theoretical anyway, as MVDP won't quit cyclocross and Van Aert will keep wanting to win a Monument... but the question was whether he could, and that's what my answer was about.

I think even in this pure hypothetical, I'm not convinced Wout would be able to race at a level higher in cyclocross than Nys and del Grosso for at least half a decade. Those two, especially TDG, appear still to be on the way up.