The 26-year-old Belgian, European champion in 2016, has competed in all eight of the foregoing races this season, earning second place on five occasions, with additional finishes of third, fifth and 14^th.

That has seen him arrive at the final event with a total of 507 points and a 41-point lead over fellow Belgian who has won four of this season’s races Eli Iserbyt, which included the penultimate one in France last Sunday.

That race lacked the Dutch world champion, Mathieu van der Poel, who was at a national training camp, but the 25-year-old who has also won the last three European titles is in the field for tomorrow’s race.

Van der Poel registered four successive wins before his absence in France, and will doubtless wish to end the season with a flourish albeit that he is too far adrift of the top to win.

Especially as the event itself – the Grand Prix Adri van der Poel – is named after his illustrious father, who won the 1996 world title and, as a road racer, won two stages of the Tour de France.

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race after placing second in the last round, Aerts accepted he was in a strong position to retain his title, but told Telenet Play Sports:

"I still need to take care of it.

"I did a good job for the World Cup.

"Right now the focus is on the remaining races."

Winners of elite races in the series earn 80 points, with 70 points going to second place, 65 to third, 55 to fourth and 50 to fifth.

Tenth place earns 42 points.

The destination of the women’s title – won last year by Dutch rider Marianne Vos, who has won seven world titles and three world road racing titles, as well as taking the London 2012 road race gold – is more open than that of the men’s.

Vos’s Dutch compatriot Annemarie Worst, who finished third last season, arrives in her home country trailing team-mate Carmen Alvarado by just five points, having beaten her last Sunday.