Without the success of Wout van Aert, Tom Pidcock's seventh place at Superprestige Boom might have looked a bit more impressive, but the Ineos Grenadiers rider was still pleased with his cyclocross season debut.

Pidcock, like Van Aert, was making his long-awaited return to competition after a successful campaign on the road, but he tempered his expectations given the long winter break.

While Van Aert's dominant run made a mockery of his pre-race comments, Pidcock lived up to expectations, finishing more than two minutes behind the three-time world champion, but ahead of a field that had been racing consistently since October.

"It was actually pretty good," was Pidcock's assessment in a video by his team, Ineos Grenadiers.

"It wasn't close to winning, but I was in good shape. Considering what I've done, yeah, I'm happy. It was good."

Pidcock got off to a slow start and had to close the gap to the top group of seven on the opening lap. By lap 3,

he had consolidated his position in the chasing pack, which was getting further and further away.

On lap 4, Pidcock decided he needed to push harder, but his aggressive riding led to a mistake. Pidcock's white championship jersey was smeared twice with sloppy boom mud. Although the win went to Van Aert, Pidcock's hopes of a podium finish were ended with this crash.

"I had too many crashes. I'm a bit scratched up and my vision is still bad."

"It was my first race and it wasn't a perfect start in those conditions. There's always something you can do, like putting anti-fogging on the lenses, but it still fogged up and I had to take my glasses off to see. It's all these little things. Every time I run my first race of the year, I feel as if I'm an idiot.

Pidcock will now head to Mallorca to join his Ineos Grenadiers teammates at their first preseason training camp, but will be back in cyclocross action next weekend. He has his sights set on the World Championships in the U.S. at the end of January, and next week, when there is no Antwerp round of the World Cup, will be key to Pidcock's progress as he will race in the Val di Sole World Cup, where the races are held on snow.

"We will now have a training camp in Majorca and next week we race on snow.

"I looked at the weather forecast and the warmest it's going to get between now and the race is when we actually race, and it's going to be -2 degrees. It's going to be weird. I've raced on ice before, but never on snow."

After Val di Sole, Pidcock will race three more World Cups in Lucfen, Namur, and Dendermonde, followed by two races in the Superprestige and X2O over Christmas and New Year, and the Hulst World Cup on January 2. He will then take a long break to attend Ineos' January training camp before returning to cross in Belgium the weekend before the World Championships in Fayetteville, USA.