Tom Pidcock and Wout van Aert's first seasonal head-to-head at a cyclo-cross World Cup event has been cancelled following a tightening of Covid restrictions in Belgium due to the worsening situation in the country. The pair will still meet at the Boom Superprestige on Saturday, but Sunday's World Cup round in Antwerp is off after organisers feared crowd restrictions would dampen the atmosphere.
Dutch outlet Wielerflits reports that the organisers pulled the plug on the event as cyclo-cross "lives by virtue of the massive turnout of the public and of the atmosphere and ambiance."
"Cyclo-cross in Antwerp lives from the public and it is traditionally a meeting place for all Antwerpers who love cyclo-cross and atmosphere," Christophe Impens of organiser Golazo told Wielerflits. "But to optimally guarantee the safety and health of everyone, we would have to impose a lot of extra measures that are also hardly controllable.
"That applies to the public along the course, but all the more so in the so-called atmospheric tents, as well as in the VIP tent. It is not an obvious decision, but the City of Antwerp understands it in view of the difficult corona situation and the changed measures."
The World Cup will continue in Italy on December 12, before a Dutch round on December 18. December 19's Namur round will likely depend on Belgium's reassessment of the pandemic in the week prior.
"We are waiting for the next federal consultation committee on 15 December. Depending on the decisions made there, we will look at our next cyclo-cross races one by one, of course always in close consultation with the local government," Impens explained.