Wout van Aert filled his weekend with winning races on consecutive days. The Belgian dominated Sunday’s ninth round of the 2024-2025 UCI Cyclocross World Cup on a filthy course in Dendermonde, Belgium. Instead of Saturday’s small winning margin at Superprestige Gullegem, van Aert dominated Dendermonde’s ooze. Series leader Michael Vanthourenhout defended gamely against Toon Aerts’ designs on the throne. Top Canadian was Maxime St. Onge in 37th.
Preliminaries
Mathieu Van der Poel might have romped to victory in the last three rounds, but Vanthourenhout was 25 points clear of muck-enthusiast Aerts at the top of the table after earning two of the eight rounds. Superprestige series leader Niels Vandeputte was in fourth place one point behind Joran Wyseure. Pim Ronhaar, still without a win this season, was last year’s Dendermonde champ.
Evan Russell, Fabian Merino, Cody Scott, Liam Sargent, Alexander Woodford and St. Onge flew the flag for Canada.
Tire pressure was low on the grid. Out of the gate Aerts flew to the front before the slop began. Van Aert had to surf through many riders, and lingered at 12th for nearly a kilometre. Crelan-Coredon pair Wyseure and Emiel Verstrynge were prominent at the front. Ronhaar hove into view and towed the string. Early on St. Onge was 30th. Chaos ruled the pits, with a Thibau Nys exchange causing Ryan Kamp to go down.
The string was still long heading into Lap 2, with a four-second gap to fourth place van Aert. He formed a quartet with Ronhaar, Aerts and Verstrynge. Iserbyt and Vanthourenhout were having a tough ride. Van Aert was the only fellow fully riding the rollers. St. Onge raced at 35th.
By the start of Lap 3 of 8, van Aert and Verstrynge had a few seconds over Aerts and Ronhaar. Van Aert set the pace in the muck but couldn’t distance Verstrynge on the rollers. The Visma-LAB rider finally wore down his partner and kept up his raid on Lap 4, Verstrynge now in a podium fight with Aerts and Ronhaar.
Vanthourenhout defended against Aerts by slowly plucking off riders. On a bad ride, Vandeputte lost contact with Wyseure in the overall standings. As van Aert continued his campaign against the sludge, Aerts moved clear of Ronhaar, who started to sift down the order. Wyseure found Aerts just before…
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