With Mathieu van der Poel taking a pass on Sunday’s speedy eighth round of the 2025-2026 UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Dendermonde, Belgium, the other riders were giddy with the prospect of victory. This translated into a thrilling race with many contenders, Thibau Nys grabbing the lead in the final kilometer and holding off Tibor del Grosso to take his third round this season. Nys now looms three points behind overall leader Laurens Sweeck. The top Canadian was Tyler Clark in 28th.
Earlier in the Dendermonde program, Farland Lamont was Canada’s best Junior men’s rider at 25th, with Evan Moore 31st, Sagan Goertz 34th, Grayson Franks 52nd and Francis Deniger 69th. In the U23 men’s race, Liam Sargent was top Canuck at 43rd, Remi Brisebois coming 48th and Lucas Goertz 52nd.
Preliminaries
With Mathieu van der Poel skipping the round, Sweeck—only a single point ahead of the world champion in the overall standings—just had 13-point-trailing Michael Vanthourenhout and Nys (-18 points) to worry about on Sunday.
Tyler Clark and Cody Scott made up the Canadian contingent.
Niels Vandeputte flew off the start line, Ryan Kamp on his six and Filipe Orts poised just behind. Van Aert kept taking different lines to move up the string. Kamp finished the 2.585-km lap in 5:27. Clark was 24th, Scott 39th.
The string stayed long on Lap 2, van Aert biding his time. Orts led over the line. Clark was up to 17th, Scott raced in 37th. The third lap saw a slight decanting under the impetus of the Spaniard, 17 riders making up the leading group
Orts went clear on Lap 4 of 12, Emile Verstrynge leading the chase. With Nys and del Grosso moving up, van Aert kept his powder dry.
Nys grabbed the steering wheel at the start of Lap 5, craving solitude at the business end of the race. Van Aert seemed to be continually tried to mend a gap to Verstrynge.
Del Grosso started to pull the train on Lap 6, but Vanthourenhout wanted to put Sweeck under pressure. Again van Aert had ground to make up. The front group was down to ten. Clark was now 28th.
As the shadows lengthened on Lap 7, Nys reestablished himself as the locomotive. Finally, at the start of Lap 8, van Aert moved to the front, eliciting the crowd’s roar.
Del Grosso kept a close eye on van Aert, with Nys and Vanthourenhout also poised for action. In fact,…
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