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After winning a blockbuster bronze medal in the cyclocross world championships – the “best of the rest” behind Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert – Thibau Nys is now preparing to become one of the biggest players in road cycling.
The son of Sven, a champion racer who won almost 300 cyclocross races in his long and distinguished career, 22-year-old Thibau was seemingly destined to follow in his father’s wheel tracks.
And after winning 11 races and carving out a reputation as a fast finisher capable of getting over small rises in his first two seasons as a pro, the young Belgian has even started inheriting members of his father’s fan club.
With the latest ‘cross season now behind him – in which he became European champion and won a couple of rounds of the World Cup – he will begin his road season with Lidl-Trek on Saturday at the GP Miguel Indurain before he heads to Itzulia Basque Country next week.
He’ll then focus on the Ardennes classics before appearing at his first grand tour, either the Tour de France or the Vuelta a España.
“It’s about trying to show everything I did last season, but now bringing it over to bigger races and trying to win them,” Nys told the press, including Velo. “Maybe it’s not an easy step, maybe it’ll come in two years, but I hope to make it in one [year].”
Nys takes down the WorldTour in 2024 breakout: ‘I surprised myself’
It didn’t look long for Nys to start winning as a pro, triumphing twice in his debut season, but it was in 2024 when the cycling world really took notice of the cheery rider.
He won WorldTour stages at the Tour de Romandie, Tour de Suisse, and Tour of Poland (three stages), and claimed two stages and the GC at the Tour de Hongrie, a race that had a stacked field despite not being a top-tier event.
“I surprised myself [last year] a lot of times,” Nys said. “I learned a lot about my body in one-day races; about searching for the limits of what I can physically do in training; and the loads my body can absorb to get better.
“That combined with race situations and scenarios I went through, it’s given me a lot of confidence for this season. In [May’s Tour of] Norway, I was in the lead of the general classification after stage one and on the second day I completely blew up with 3km to go because I overdid myself instead of going at my own pace. It’s those small things you feel like you need to experience to adapt a little bit better,” he said.
The ease with which Thibau Nys wins stages is just unbelievable. What a superiority again, this time in the Tour de Pologne.
He has done 5 stage races this year and won a stage in all of them: Romandie, Hongrie, Norway, Suisse and Pologne. pic.twitter.com/GtTGmc2KBQ
— Cyclocross24.com (@cyclocross24) August 12, 2024
‘I’m slowly developing into what I dream’
Nys says that his forte is short climbs between 30 seconds and seven minutes, and his results back up his assertion that he’s a puncheur.
“Last year was the year where I really made a name for myself in those kinds of finishes,” he said. “I went to Poland and the riders and teams were watching more than at the beginning of the season because of what I had shown already. I’m slowly developing into what I dream.”
Now he’s establishing himself, he wants to land the most prestigious prizes.
“It proves I’m doing a really good job, but I want to do it in even bigger races,” he said. “The way I won races last year, I want to convert that into these kinds of finishes in grand tours or in La Flèche Wallonne, which is a big goal for this year. It’s these kinds of races where I want to be there all the time.
“In the future I will try to always be kept in mind as a rider to watch in the races that suit me. Year in and year out I try to be at my top level. I want to achieve this, but if it’s not this year I hope I can make the step up in the next couple of years.”
Whether it’s the Tour or the Vuelta where he starts, he has confidence in his team to support his development.
“I am happy with every decision they make and I trust what they do will be alright,” he said.
But three-week racing is daunting.
“It scares me a little bit,” he admitted. ”If you have a bad day or a bad moment, it can mess up your whole grand tour, but it will make you a better rider eventually. If you’re aware that you suffer a lot, that’s already the first step. I think I can handle it.”
Cyclocross, classics, documentaries: Nys is Belgium’s new poster-boy
Looking further into the future, Nys is adamant he won’t hang up his ‘cross wheels – “I want to achieve more in cyclocross; I had a good road season after a good cyclocross season, so feel no need to choose between one or two,” he said – and also his eyes set on winning the Tour of Flanders.
“I really love this race,” he said. “It would be my dream, but I don’t know how I will develop as a rider. Maybe I will be more for hillier courses, stages in grand tours or more towards the Ardennes. Time will tell.”
What is certain is that Nys is already a star in his home country.
Since 2017 when he was only 14, he has been the subject of a documentary series, “DNA Nys,” that has followed him around, with season five airing in Belgium right now.
“I grew up with these kinds of things, so it’s not a big shock having camera people following you or press interviewing you. I’ve never known it any other way. I’ve never felt like it was something unnatural,” he said. “I’m aware of that [expectation] but it’s not like it’s affecting me in any way. I’m getting used to it and in Belgium it’s getting crazy.”
Revealing that his friends call him “Rufus” after his impersonations of a character in the Belgian 1986 film De Paniekzaaiers, Nys laughed that his own father’s fan club has started following him as well.
Eleven years after his dad @sven_nys won his last Belgian title, Thibau Nys won his first
How Thibau won his second major jersey this year, and what’s next: https://t.co/wN7Dlsgkbc pic.twitter.com/zEYkcogXP7
— Trek Race Shop (@TrekRaceShop) January 14, 2025
Son of Sven, and star of tennis
And so quick has his own progression through the sport been, Thibau is now occasionally teaching Sven.
“I cannot imagine him not being there in the build-up of my career,” he said. “It’s slowly getting to the point where he learns from me as well, but I still surprise myself with the amount of things he can still teach me.”
In a parallel universe, the younger Nys might have excelled in an entirely different sport.
“I was playing tennis at a really high level,” he said, disclosing that he received a signed Rafael Nadal jersey when in lower school and still practises from time to time.
“From a super young age, tennis is crazy intensive: as a 10-year-old you train 20 hours a week. One day I said it got too much so I’d stop, and the next Wednesday I did my first cycling training with my local team,” Nys sai
The rest, as they say, is history, and the heavily-tattooed Nys is eyeing a special ink job in the coming years.
“If I win a monument or road world championships in the elite, maybe I’ll consider doing something,” he smiled.
