After round five of the Telenet Superprestige cyclocross series in Boom, Belgium, Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) admitted that he had hoped for a fourth place finish or better.

"I didn't feel as good as I had hoped. I thought today would be much better than last weekend, but it wasn't at all, which is disappointing," Van Aert told HLN on Sunday.

"I am not discouraged. This is exactly what I expected," he said, having just returned to cyclocross last weekend after a full season on the road. But after last week I was expecting more. In the final, the other riders were much better."

The race was won by Eli Iserbito ahead of his Pauwels Sausen Bingor teammate Michael Van Tulenhout and Toon Arts of the Telenet Baloise Lions.

VanArt admitted that he had a poor start and was on the limit throughout the race. Asked if Sunday's hilly course at Boom was the hardest of the three cross races this season, Van Aert replied: "Technically, yes. I think lap after lap you could see that there was nothing left on the downhills. Toward the end, I didn't know what to do. It didn't go the way I wanted it to.

"Technically it didn't go well, but the conditions also had something to do with it. If the conditions are better, you make fewer mistakes. I crashed on a corner with two laps to go and allowed Aerts, who was in third place, to reverse the position. This is simply what happens when you reach your limits."

"I had nothing left in the race and ended up finishing fourth," he said of the decisive move by winner Yzerbit on lap seven of the nine-lap race. When Eli gets a gap like that, he can quickly build an advantage, and he showed that ability again today. I finished fourth, but not much more than that because I didn't have a great feeling in my legs."

On Monday, Van Aert will return to Girona, Spain, for an individual training camp, HLN reported.

"I won't bring my cyclocross bike," he said, but Jumbo Visma sport director Jan Boven said last week that Van Aert will focus on his cyclocross skills. 'That's where I'll train on the road bike and get in shape. My goal is to ride well over the Christmas period, so I'm going to work on that now. I need to get better overall."

Van Aert will return to cross racing on December 20 at the second round of the World Cup in Namur, where he will face world champion Mathieu Van der Pol (Alpecin Phoenix) for the first time in the cyclo-cross season.