According to her Jumbo-Visma team, Marianne Vos will return to cyclocross competition next week at the snow-covered World Cup Val di Sole in the Italian Alps. This, along with the Dutch National Championships on January 9, is one of five World Cup events scheduled before she travels to the US for the World Cyclocross Championships in Fayetteville at the end of January.

After Val di Sole, Vos will compete in four of the six remaining World Cup events, including Luxfen on December 18, Dendermonde on December 26, Hulst on January 1, and Hogelheide on January 23. He will miss the games against Namur, scheduled for the day after Lucfen, and Flamanville in mid-January.

The seven-time cyclo-cross world champion started her cross campaign with a second-place finish in Paris-Roubaix Femme, followed a week later by victory in the World Cup Waterloo. She finished the three-race World Cup circuit in the U.S. with two wins and a fourth in Fayetteville before taking a few weeks off from racing.

"Obviously, I'm happy to have scored some points, but it was also great to get back into the rhythm of cyclocross at the start of the season. It takes some of the pressure off in the second half of the season. And of course, I love racing in the US and seeing the course in Fayetteville," Vos told Cycling News about racing in the Midwest.

Wout Van Aert and Tom Pidcock are two of the elite athletes who will be on the highly anticipated course at the Vermilion Cross Country Ski Center next weekend. Located at an elevation of 1,261 meters, the new cross-country venue has received a significant amount of snow over the past few days.

The elements of snow and ice, as well as grass, dirt, and mud, were deliberately added by World Cup organizer Flanders Classics to entice the International Olympic Committee to include cyclocross in future Winter Olympics programs. One of the guiding principles of the Winter Olympics is that all sports be held on snow or ice.