How much money can you get for winning the Cyclocross World Cup?

The cyclocross season can be very productive for the top cyclists, especially because of the number of races that take place. As we could already imagine, the amount of the prizes of the specialty, are far from those of the top level road races.

The prizes of the Cyclocross World Cup

Throughout 14 races, which began in the distant month of October with the event held around Trek's headquarters in Waterloo, the mud professionals live in a whirlwind of races, practically every weekend, many of them doubling their participation due to the coincidence with the Superprestige events and that in some weeks becomes non-stop when the competitions of the X20 and Exact Cross circuits are added.

In a sport such as cyclocross, which outside of Belgium, where it rivals football as the king of sports in terms of media coverage, does not have the level of professionalism that road cycling can have, prize money from races makes up a good percentage of the cyclists' income.

The UCI publishes on its website the amount of financial prizes allocated to the various World Cup races. A quick glance at the table allows us to discover that, first of all, the prizes for the men's and women's categories are the same, with a minimum of 300 € for the first 40 finishers if they manage to finish the race between the 31st and 40th positions.

At the top end, victory in a Cyclocross World Cup race awards €5,000 to the winner. A remarkable figure, but a far cry from the €11,000 you get for winning a stage in the Tour de France or La Vuelta a España. Not to mention the €20,000 that the winner of a race such as the Liège-Bastogne-Liège gets. The amount drops to €3,500 for second place and €3,000 for finishing third.

As for the final general classification, cash prizes are awarded to the top 20 finishers, with €1,000 for those finishing between 17th and 20th place. For their part, the winners get €30,000, a figure comparable to the €25,000 for winning the green jersey of the Tour de France. The second and third place winners get €20,000 and €16,000 respectively.

With 3 races remaining, it is Laurens Sweeck who leads the general classification, but with the threat of Michael Vanthourenhout who is in second place, just 21 points behind the leader.

The other circuits

Although the Cyclocross World Cup is the most important event of the mud season in terms of sporting prestige, as we said before, in Belgium and the Netherlands this sport takes on another level, which is evident in the other circuits of events confined to that region.

The most relevant is undoubtedly the Superprestige which, in addition, also has prize money that has little to envy to those awarded in the World Cup races.

In the case of the Supersprestige, the overall winner receives €25,000, with €16,000 for second place and €10,000 for third place. In turn, each of the various races has an allocation of €2,500 for first place, €1,750 for second and €1,000 for third, up to €150 for the eighth place finisher. With two races remaining, Lars Van der Haar leads the table, closely followed by Michael Vanthourenhout.

For its part, the X20, although it does not have the same media coverage as the World Cup and Supersprestige, also has some significant prizes. €30,000 for the winner of the competition, €15,000 for the second and €10,000 for the third place is what the winner of the general classification will obtain after the 8 races of which it consists. A classification that has the curiosity of being established, not by points, but by time in the style of the general classification of the laps and that, with 3 races disputed, is dominated by Eli Iserbyt. However, there are no prizes for each of the individual races.