This slow motion footage, below, of the early incident at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships shows how Wout van Aert lost time and then got caught behind lots of riders due to slipping back in the field.
Though the Belgian eventually finished 2nd, winner Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) was charging away at the front of the race as Van Aert was scrambling to keep his hopes alive.
By the time Van Aert managed to work his way through the field and fight back into the top 10, he was 49 seconds down on the solo leader with two laps completed.
At that point, going out onto lap three, a number of Belgian riders appeared to wait for Van Aert, though trying to catch Van der Poel always looked like an impossible task.
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He got caught in a near crash at a right hander on the opening lap, with a number of riders almost falling on the left side of the course. Van Aert had to unclip and appeared to rip his shots off the barriers on that first corner as the field was very tightly packed.
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?? Wout van Aert: "I was on the outside in the first turn. They almost crashed on the inside so there was a domino effect. I almost got into the fences. Then I was even further back than my start position." #Lievin2025 pic.twitter.com/Ji49ZE10kX
— Cyclocross24.com (@cyclocross24) February 2, 2025
But his bigger problem was the sheer number of riders who had passed him by the time he corrected himself again. He was close to the very back of the field - being held up by slower riders and forced to run sections of the course as his path was so packed - as Van der Poel was flying fluidly around the opening lap.
"I was on the outside in the first corner and there was a crash on the inside. You had a domino effect, which caused me to hang in the fences and almost come to a complete standstill," he said.
"When I left again, I was still further than my starting position. It was just a matter of waiting for space to open up," Van Aert added, saying he felt he did not lose time to Van der Poel once he had dealt with the incident and had a clearer run at the course.
"I had the feeling that I didn't lose that much to Mathieu when I had a clear track. He knows that he just has to create the gap and not take any risks afterwards. In the chase you race differently. But you never race with the belief that you can win. If you are competing for the win you can go a bit deeper."
In the end, Van der Poel took an historic record-equaling seventh elite Worlds gold some 45 seconds up on Van Aert; the early incident denying fans what could have been a fascinating battle between the big two.
Thibau Nys made it a 1-3 for Belgium, at 1:06, with the 22-year-old European champion today taking his first medal at an elite Worlds, having previously won cyclocross world titles at U23 and junior level.
