4.02PM, Sunday 23rd November 2015
WORDS BY OLIVER TOWNSEND
ILLUSTRATION BY CASEY ROBERTSON
PHOTO BY PAUL DAVEY
At 39 years, 5 months and 5 days old, the odds seemed somewhat stacked against Sven ‘De Kannibaal van Baal’ Nys winning his 50th World Cup cyclocross race. However, in a career stretching 25 years and with a palmares so incredible it would use up my entire word-limit just listing the different victories, Sven Nys has never been one to allow a bit of adversity to come between him and a victory in a cyclocross race.
Sven is widely regarded as being the world’s best cyclocross racer. This double cyclocross world-champion, double (mountain bike) Olympian and nine times Belgian national cyclocross champion is probably the world’s winningest ’cross racer. His victory on 23rd November, at the sand dune-riddled Koksijde course in north-west Belgium, was one of his sweetest though.
In the 2014/15 season, Sven’s star seemed to be fading a little. Although his massive travelling fan club was just as passionate, colourful and vocal as ever, Sven seemed plagued with misfortune, illness and somewhat dubious form (after self-proclaimed over-training in the off-season) and his results were not as incredible as his loyal tifosi had become accustomed to. When he announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2015/16 season, there were some definite naysayers who thought he would fizzle out, rather than go out in style.
What the negative types forgot though was the incredible inner strength and the desire to win that made Sven the champ that he is. This self-belief, or ‘Svenness’ as it’s been nicknamed, comes from a mix of supreme fitness, ludicrously good bike handling skills (maybe the fact that he was an eight-time Belgian BMX champion before starting to race cyclocross helped somewhat?), and time-served race-craft (that mix of experience, tactical nous and foresight). Sven’s mental strength and ability to metaphorically eat his competition (hence the Kannibaal moniker) undoubtedly also played a big part in his win at Koksijde.
If his victory among the orangey-red sand dunes of Koksijde on that November day proves to be Sven’s last World Cup victory, I doubt that many of his fans would be too disappointed. He left his winning move to the last possible minute – a superbly well-judged application of power in the last technical section before the final corner of the race saw him put clear space between himself and his only challenger, a racer 18 years Sven’s junior. You could hear the roar of the crowds as they witnessed his last-minute dash for victory, and I suspect this was mirrored by hordes of armchair viewers the world over, any number of whom may also have been afflicted by some sudden dust in their eye, as I was.
The fact that Sven has dominated the elite cyclocross race scene for such an incredible length of time, his boundless enthusiasm and love of the sport, his willingness to take younger riders under his wing and his phenomenal abilities on the bike, mean he will be sorely missed by both his fans and – most likely – his competitors too.