With three events taking place in their home country, and with a complete monopoly on the top four categories in the World Cup rankings, it’s hard to look beyond a Belgian rider winning the overall men’s World Cup prize.

However, Stefan Wyman, directeur sportif at Matrix Fitness Racing Academy and husband of seven-time British cyclo-cross champion Helen, believes change is afoot.

He identified the riders he believes we should be keeping a close eye on this season at the elite men and under-23 men’s levels.

He said: “Phil Walsleben, the German, could surprise a few people this year – he’s had a really good start to the season and is a former under-23 world champion. He’s had three years at this level but he’s been effected by injury, but he’s now had his second good summer in a row. He’s really confident and this could be his year to really come through. Martin Bina, who won the last event last year, has also started well this season and Julien Taramarcaz rode well last year.

“At under-23 level, Mike Teunissen is an extremely good rider but I don’t think you can look beyond Mathieu van der Poel. He was world champion at junior level last year and I think he’s going to take the jump straight to the very top of the under-23 level. He’s exceptional on the road as well and it will be interesting to see how long he stays in the under-23 bracket before moving up.

“The Netherlands have a lot of good young talent and are really putting the squeeze on the likes of Belgium and it’s coming through into the elite level. They are getting riders in who are starting to go really well at the top – even with the likes of Lars Boom leaving the sport, they are still infiltrating the top. You will still see Belgium winning this year, the likes of Sven Nys, Niels Albert and Kevin Pauwels will be fighting it out amongst themselves for the event wins – you won’t see much change there and in terms of their dominance of the top eight. But I think it will only take a couple of years for Dutch and Czechs to be in that position. There are lots of things that could happen in terms of results this year that will have a big effect on the future.”