Wout Van Aert, big favorite for the Heusden-Zolder cyclo-cross in the absence of Mathieu van der Poel, was beaten in the sprint by the young Dutch champion Tibor Del Grosso.
Wout Van Aert, big favorite for the Heusden-Zolder cyclo-cross in the absence of Mathieu van der Poel on Tuesday, was beaten in the sprint by the young Dutch champion Tibor Del Grosso, after a superb duel in the undergrowth of the Belgian Zolder racing circuit. When Van der Poel is not there, it is one of his teammates who ensures the victory of the Alpecin team. Del Grosso, a superb 22-year-old champion, was the only one to follow Van Aert when the Belgian accelerated on the fifth of the eight laps of this Grand Prix counting for the Super Prestige, a competition which brings together the best cyclo-cross riders in the world.
Del Grosse held on
Despite his impressive stature (1.90 m), the young Dutchman demonstrated greater technical ease than Van Aert in difficult passages. The Belgian, who we felt under pressure, tried to make his opponent break down, but Del Grosso held on, to arrive shoulder to shoulder on the finishing straight, and win in the sprint in front of a compact crowd, as always in Belgium for cyclo-cross.
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Van Aert had been left behind in the traffic jam at the start and had to work hard at the start of the race, first to get back to the front of the chasing group, and then to bring the group back to the men who had started in the lead – including Del Grosso -, which was done on the fourth lap. This “Grand Prix Eric De Vlaeminck” in Zolder was the fifth of the eight events of the Super Prestige, the general classification of which was won last year by the Belgian Niels Vandeputte.
