After a month’s recess, the fourth round of 2025-2026 X2O Badkamers Trofee, Plage Cross, ran Monday in Hofstade, Belgium. Lucinda Brand continued her domination of the season, going four for four in the series and rolling up an insurmountable lead. Mathieu van der Poel just can’t stop winning, taking his fourth triumph on the trot. Wout van Aert, seventh in Friday’s World Cup round, came runner up.
Earlier in the Monday’s program, Fabrice Dufresne was top Canadian in the Junior men’s contest at 38th. Thomas Deniger placed 55th and Asher Bensimon was 62nd.
Preliminaries
At the top of the men’s classification, Round 2 winner Joris Nieuwenhuis held a 24-second lead over Cameron Mason and 42 seconds over double round victor Thibau Nys. After winning all the rounds so far, series leader Lucinda Brand was over four minutes ahead of Inge van der Heijden in the elite women’s side.
In the elite women’s race, Lucinda Brand won her ninth straight CX race, teammate Shirin van Anrooij earning her second runner-up spot in consecutive days. After a great start to the season in the USA, Manon Bakker took her first European podium. Brand is now so far ahead of Bakker in the overall that she can comfortably skip rounds.
The elite men’s race was another romp for van der Poel, this time with van Aert coming second to his great rival. In placing sixth, Nieuwenhuis increased his lead over eighth place Mason to 40 seconds.
The next round is next Monday in Loenhout.
2025-2026 X2O Badkamers Trofee, Round 4, Hofstade, Elite Women
1) Lucinda Brand (The Netherlands/Baloise-Glowi Lions) 45:47
2) Shirin van Anrooij (The Netherlands/Baloise-Glowi Lions) +0:22
3) Manon Bakker (The Netherlands/Crelan-Corendon) +0:25
2025-2026 X2O Badkamers Trofee, Round 4, Hofstade, Elite Men
1) Mathieu van der Poel (The Netherlands/Alpecin-Deceuninck) 58:53
2) Wout van Aert (Belgium/Visma-Lease a Bike) +0:48
3) Niels Vandeputte (Belgium/Alpecin-Deceuninck) +1:02
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