UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup – Tábor

The Tábor round of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup is a cyclocross race at the Komora sports area in Tábor, in the Czech Republic. It is held in late October or in November, and frost marked the editions of 2018 and 2025: icy corners in the first, ground frozen hard in the second. The lap is fast, and at its barriers some riders hop and others run. The world championships were held in Tábor in 2001, 2010, 2015 and 2024.

What frost does to the fast lap at Komora

The race is run at the Sport Area Komora in Tábor, and on a mild day it is quick. At the round of October 2013 it was a warm 62 degrees Fahrenheit, about 17 Celsius, and the mostly grass course was very fast and dry except for one corner, which turned slippery. That corner brought down Kevin Pauwels, and Sven Nys crashed on the same slippery section and finished 22nd. With frost Tábor is something else. At the world championships of 2010 Marianne Vos rode away from the women’s field on an icy course. On November 23, 2025, the ground was frozen hard, and the sun gradually turned the top layer slippery. The men raced that day over slick passages where the sun had done its work; Thibau Nys attacked near the end of the first lap, led by about 10 seconds after two laps and won alone.

Do riders hop the barriers in Tábor or run them?

Some do one and some the other. In 2021 Lars van der Haar was one of the few riders who did not hop the barriers: he got off and ran them. He started the last lap with only Eli Iserbyt and Quinten Hermans behind him and won by 11 seconds. A year later, in the women’s race of October 23, 2022, Puck Pieterse was the only rider to jump the barriers on the first lap. She did it again on the third lap and split a group of ten, with only Annemarie Worst and Fem van Empel able to follow. The three hesitated, the group grew back to seven, and on the last lap everyone waited for the barriers. Then Van Empel accelerated and opened a small gap on Worst and Pieterse, enough for her third World Cup win of that season, after Waterloo and Fayetteville.

Lucinda Brand’s four wins in Tábor

Lucinda Brand’s first win in a cyclocross World Cup race came in Tábor in 2018. A short off-camber climb on slippery ground made the difference in that race, and Brand started the last lap in front. She won again in 2020, 2021 and 2025. The race of late November 2020 began with a crash at a sharp turn seconds after the start, which caught about a quarter of the field; paramedics rushed to Sara Casasola. Brand attacked after Puck Pieterse and Kata Blanka Vas had joined the leaders on the third lap, and finished 24 seconds ahead of Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado. Five years later Casasola took Brand to the last straight. Brand accelerated several times on the final lap without getting clear, and it was the Italian who attacked after the barriers. Brand took her wheel, came past and started the final straight with a lead.

Which Czech riders have won at home in Tábor?

The world championships have been held in Tábor four times, and the first of them, on February 4, 2001, came down to one second: Erwin Vervecken of Belgium beat the Czech rider Petr Dlask. When the championships returned in 2010, the men’s title went to a Czech, Zdeněk Štybar. The World Cup round has had home winners too: Kamil Ausbuher in 2004 and Radomír Šimůnek in 2006 in the men’s race, Kateřina Nash in 2011 in the women’s. Nash attacked at the top of the stairs that day and stayed clear to the line, before a home crowd. Šimůnek won in Tábor again on October 28, 2010, when the race was run outside the World Cup as the Velká cena města Tábora.

Mathieu van der Poel’s unbeaten years in Tábor

Mathieu van der Poel won in Tábor as a junior, in the World Cup races of 2011 and 2012. By the elite World Cup round of 2018 he had not lost there since 2011, a run that took in the world title of 2015 and the European title of 2017. In that race a strong early pace left only five riders in front halfway through the second lap. Van der Poel took the lead in a run of icy corners and kept it to the finish. Behind him Michael Vanthourenhout beat Lars van der Haar in a last-lap contest for second place, and the world champion, Wout van Aert, finished seventh.