Eli Iserbyt hadn’t won a C1-plus race this season until Sunday’s opening round of the 2024-2025 UCI World Cup on a sandy, windy course in Antwerp, Belgium. This season Iserbyt has been better known for serving a UCI suspension after a wheel-stamping incident in his first contest of the year, and being a beer-target for a troglodyte, but now he can say that he leads the biggest of the three big series in Europe. He has won two of the last three World Cup titles.
This season’s World Cup is 12 rounds running through Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, France and Spain, concluding January 26 in Hoogerheide, the Netherlands.
Preliminaries
Last season Eli Iserbyt won two rounds on his way to beating Joris Nieuwenhuis by 25 points at the top of the World Cup final classification. Of Sunday’s entrants, he had placed the best in last year’s Antwerp round.
Nieuwenhuis, now with Ridley, was supposed to take on his first race of the season on Sunday, but he still hasn’t recovered from shingles. Lars van der Haar led both the Superprestige and X2O Trofee series.
The Race
Thibau Nys came hard on the outside to snag the hole shot on Lap 1, but Laurens Sweeck soon seized the wheel. The pace couldn’t chop the long string. Michal Vanthourenhout and teammate Iserbyt were close on Sweeck’s wheel, Nys and Niels Vandeputte lurking. Vanthourenhout took over the front and led over the line, a 3.285-km lap in 7:36.
The group continued to be large on Lap 2, despite Sweeck’s engine powering it. Van der Haar fought his way to Position 4. Sweeck accelerated over the line to open a small gap.
Iserbyt pulled Sweeck close on Lap 3 of 8, Nys and Vanthourenhout the next duo and van der Haar riding with Vandeputte. They all reunited before the line, Joran Wyseure joining in.
Iserbyt finally claimed the front on Lap 4. Sweeck had to work hard to keep up, Vanthourenhout his shadow. Iserbyt kept trying to pry open a gap, achieving one before the line. Nys was beginning to lag.
With Vanthourenhout blocking, Iserbyt took more real estate on Lap 5.
The Belgian champion toiled 13 seconds ahead of Sweeck marked by Vanthourenhout on Lap 6. Vandeputte, Wyseure and van der Haar were still in the podium hunt.
By the penultimate lap it seemed likely that Iserbyt was getting his much-needed win, as he took 17 seconds into the bell lap….
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