Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert renewed their rivalry in Saturday’s fifth round of the 2025-2026 UCI Cyclocross World Cup in sandy Antwerp, the second of three consecutive Belgian rounds before Christmas. It was the world champion’s second CX race of the season and van Aert’s first. Van der Poel strolled to victory while van Aert came seventh. Series leader Thibau Nys had a disappointing round and saw runner-up Laurens Sweeck take over the top of the classification. Top Canadian Tyler Clark was 37th.
Earlier in the day, at the Junior men’s race, Emilien Belzile came sixth and Evan Moore tenth. Sagan Goertz, Grayson Franks, Fabrice Dufresne, Asher Bensimon, Farland Lamont, William Houle and Thomas Deniger also raced in the 72-strong field.
Preliminaries
Nys’s runner-up spot in Mathieu van der Poel’s Namur victory opened up a series lead of 17 points to Sardinia winner Michael Vanthourenhout and Joris Nieuwenhuis. Last season the still-absent Eli Iserbyt won the Antwerp round.
Clark, Cody Scott, Remi Brisebrois, Rhett Bates and Liam Sargent made up the Canadian contingent in the 92-strong field.
Van der Poel started on the second row of the grid and his first recorded position was 16th, van Aert started on the fourth row and his first recorded position was 21st. Sweeck was quickly in the lead pulling the string. Soon MvdP was sixth with van Aert seventh. Joris Nieuwenhuis took over the front. Nys was floundering. Van der Poel then powered to the front and bolted. Tibor Del Grosso and Nieuwenhuis were his closest chasers. At the line Tyler Clark was top Canadian in 26th.
Van der Poel, his teammate Del Grosso and Nieuwenhuis formed a formidable trio at the start of Lap 2. Van Aert occupied Position 5. The man in the rainbow jersey left his companions behind and took a 10-second gap going into the third circuit. Clark was 35th.
Roared on by the partisan crown, van Aert toiled his way over to Del Grosso and Nieuwenhuis at the beginning of Lap 3 of 8. Van der Poel’s advantage was 25 seconds by the end of the lap. Clark raced in 26th.
With van der Poel romping to the win and starting to lap riders on the fourth circuit, attention focused on the podium battle of Del Grosso, Nieuwenhuis, van Aert, Sweeck and Emiel Verstrynge. Sweeck took off on the others and crossed the line nine seconds…
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