Wout van Aert has praised Irish cycling fans, saying the crowd at today's UCI Cyclocross World Cup was much bigger than the riders usually see when World Cup racing is held outside the sport's heartland countries in Continental Europe.
Flanders Classics, which promoted the races today, had already said early ticket sales were very strong for Dublin and has now confirmed a bumper crowd turned out at the Sport Ireland Campus in Blanchardstown.
Some 8,000 spectators saw the pro men's and women's races today, a very large crowd for a World Cup race held outside Belgium on the Netherlands and Van Aert clearly noticed the huge welcome in Ireland.
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"It was a really pleasant experience, a lot of people came out which we don’t always see when we go abroad with the World Cup so that’s something really good," he said after winning the event with a brilliant final lap.
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“The course was changing minute to minute today so that’s one of the hardest day in cyclocross when you have to adapt to the conditions. It was nice," added Van Aert, saying he would be keen to come back to Ireland as he had a 100 per cent win record here and wanted to keep that going.
Flanders Classics chief executive, Tomas Van Den Spiegel, said the World Cup's first trip to Dublin was "an absolute success".
"Those 8.000 fans enjoying the first UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup on Irish soil turned the Sport Ireland Campus into a fantastic winter cycling event," he said. "We hope everyone loved this as much as we did, and we are happy to look at the possibility of coming back here next season."
Sport Ireland chief executive Una May said her organisation was delighted at the success of the event, with so many fans braving the freezing conditions to enjoy the racing.
“Sport Ireland is really thrilled to have seen so many people here on the Sport Ireland Campus today having a fantastic time and a great experience at this event," she said. I hope that everybody enjoyed it as much as the riders seem to have enjoyed it as well as all our visitors from overseas. The event has been a huge success.”
