1. Apart from cyclo-cross, Nys is fivefold national mountainbike champion, and has competed in that discipline in two Olympic games.
18 Facts About Sven Nys
1. 2.
Sven Nys won eight BMX national titles before switching to cyclocross, a more popular sport in Belgium.
3.
Sven Nys won the under-23 world championship in 1997 and 1998, beating another Belgian, Bart Wellens.
4.
Groenendaal sprinted away from the start and Sven Nys was forced to hold back and not help another Belgian, Mario De Clercq, chase him.
5.
Groenendaal won and Sven Nys, who came third, was heavily criticised in Belgium for choosing team over country.
6.
Sven Nys became Belgian champion again, but Wellens won the world championship and the World Cup.
7.
Sven Nys was angry that his countrymen had allowed Groenendaal, a Dutchman, to win the World Cup rather than him.
8.
That evening Sven Nys decided from then on to ride for himself.
9.
Sven Nys is the only cyclo-crosser to achieve such dominance.
10.
Sven Nys came close to repeating the feat the following season but he gave up in the world championship after a fall on the last lap.
11.
At the world championship in Hooglede-Gits Sven Nys fell three times: over Wellens, who fell because a television motor had hit one of the road markers; over Erwin Vervecken; and because of an error of his own.
12.
On 31 December 2006 Sven Nys won his 150th race with the elites, at Diegem.
13.
Sven Nys was appointed as a member of the inaugural UCI Athletes' Commission in 2011.
14.
In 2013 Sven Nys won the world championship a second time.
15.
On 10 February 2013, Sven Nys won his 60th race in the Superprestige.
16.
On 22 November 2015, Sven Nys won the Koksijde round of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in Belgium, his fiftieth victory in the series.
17.
Sven Nys's win came seventeen years and a day after his first World Cup victory.
18.
Sven Nys is a motivational speaker, during his keynotes he shares information about his experiences during his cycling career.