Refresh
Still all together after 16km. Van der Poel and Mohoric are up towards the front of the bunch, though – second and third through that checkpoint behind Frenchman Florian Dauphin.
The first checkpoint came after 4km but no splits in the large peloton so far. The Slovenian Matevz Govekar was first through there as he looks to marshall the bunch on behalf of Mohoric.
Here’s a shot from the start line. The sea of light blue is Belgian jerseys. If this becomes team-tactical like a road race, they clearly possess the upper hand.
Miss yesterday’s action? You can catch up here:
We’re off
Van der Poel and Mohoric on the start line.
The strongest squad here is undoubtedly the home nation, Belgium, who bring the inaugural world champ from 2021, Gianni Vermeersch, along with a wealth of WorldTour talent: Tim Merlier, Tiesj Benoot, Jaspery Stuyven, Quinten Hermans, Florian Vermeersch, They also have cyclo-cross stalwarts Eli Iserbyt, Laurens Sweeck, and Michael Vanthourenhout, and, to top it all off, a certain Greg Van Avermaet – former Classics star who has taken up gravel in retirement.
Mohoric, who won in style last year but was forced to miss the recent Road Worlds to to a hand injury sustained in a gravel ride. Mohoric even tried proper US gravel earlier this year at Unbound, but this is UCI gravel and, especially with a relatively tame course, is well suited to a road racing engine.
Van der Poel has plenty of teammates but not on quite the same level as the Dutch mafia we saw in the women’s race. Fellow cyclo-cross race Joris Nieuwenhuis is among those by his side.
Here is Van der Poel at the start in Halle just now.
The action gets underway at 12pm local time, so just around the corner.
After the women’s race served up a battle between Marianne Vos and Lotte Kopecky, what does the men’s gravel world championship have in store? 2023 champion Matej Mohoric (Slovenia) is on the start list, as is Classics star and former road race world champ Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands).
Welcome to Cyclingnews’ live coverage of the elite men’s race at the UCI Gravel World Championships.
