When his cyclocross season started last September in Las Vegas at a nighttime, under-the-lights spectacle that’s part of the Interbike Trade Show, Lars van der Haar was a virtual unknown in the pro field. For the baby-faced 19-year-old from Holland, all 125 pounds of him, it was a lot to take in. First year out of the junior category. First year racing with the Rabobank-Giant Off-Road Team. First year on the all-new TCX Advanced SL team bike. First trip to America.

Five months later, Lars is wearing the rainbow jersey of the Under-23 World Champion. Last week he signed a two-year extension with the Rabobank-Giant team. Since Las Vegas, where he finished seventh among a stacked field of pros, he has won every U23 race of importance, overshooting all expectations—even his own.

The baby face remains, but it’s safe to say Lars is no longer an unknown. As his season wound down with a few late-February races in Europe he could finally relax and admire a trophy case that includes a grand slam of U23 medals: Dutch National Champion, European Champion, World Cup Champion, World Champion.

“My goals this year were to be good at European and Dutch Championships,” Lars said. “But winning both, plus the World Championship, I never thought I could do all that.”

The race in Las Vegas was one of Lars’s first on the new team bike. “As soon as I adapted to the new bike, I loved it,” he said. “It’s a fast bike, and very light. It’s really the best ’cross bike I’ve ever ridden and I’m not just saying that. I like that the bottom bracket is a bit higher than on most bikes—I can go faster through corners while pedaling.”

To prepare for his first season of U23 racing, Lars upped his training volume in the summer months. “I worked a lot more on conditioning this year,” he said. “Not as much on sprinting, more on endurance. Before, there was a very big gap between me and the top riders but I think I closed the gap this year. Next year I’ll focus more on power because I still don’t have quite as much as some of the other top riders.”

Lars does most of his training on the road, riding his TCR Advanced SL near his home in the central part of The Netherlands. “It’s a perfect place for training, I can ride anything,” he says. “I have flats, hills, trails in the forest. I can ride through farm fields, alongside lakes and rivers.”

During the ’cross season Lars spends one day a week working on skills and technique with the riders from the Rabobank-Giant pro squad including Gerben de Knegt and Bart Aernouts. “We practice bunny-hopping, sand pits, barriers and other stuff,” he says.

Lars says he’s equally at home on fast power courses, technical courses, and in all kinds of weather conditions. “We had a lot of snow this season,” he said. “A lot of cold races with really tough conditions. I like racing in just about everything, except maybe the really muddy races just because I don’t quite have all the power yet. But I do like the difficulty and the technical aspect of racing in the mud. I’m a bit of an all-rounder— I won at least once in every type of condition this year. I won on a muddy course, a fast and dry course, a snow course.”

It was in early November, at the European Championship race in Germany, that Lars suddenly sensed what he might be able to accomplish this year. “That was a big eye-opener,” he said. “That’s when I realized I could win a big championship. Then I kept winning and getting all the podium placements, so I had hope for the World Championships.”

More than just hope, he came into the January 29 race in St. Wendel, Germany, as one of the favorites. The race turned out to be a close, hard-fought battle, with Lars reeling in his Rabobank-Giant teammate Mike Teunissen in the final kilometer and sprinting to a gold medal.

Now Lars is looking forward to taking three weeks off the bike, then starting his build-up to next season with a summer of road stage racing, and perhaps a few mountain bike races for fun. But for now he’s still getting used to wearing the rainbow jersey, and experiencing just what that means.

“It’s nice, it’s something every rider dreams of,” he said. “The highest you can go in cyclocross is world champion, so if you get that you’re not too bad a cyclist.”

No, not too bad at all.

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