The crash took place near the end of Sunday’s X20 Badkamers Trofee cyclo-cross race at Hamme in Belgium. The 22-year-old Baloise Trek Lions rider, recently crowned 2024 European Cyclo-cross Champion, was sitting fourth then and had just given up the chase when he appeared to be thrown off-balance and fell headfirst over the handlebars and into a wooden post.
He managed to get back on his bike and crossed the finish line, covered in mud and holding his knee, in 14th place, 1:59 behind the winner, Niels Vandeputte. With this victory, his first of the year, the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider put an end to a frustrating series of close finishes and won his first race of the year, beating a visibly disappointed Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal. The runner-up struck his handlebars in exasperation before crossing the finish line 2 seconds behind the winner. The European Championship runner-up, Felipe Orts Lloret (Ridley Racing) finished third, at 8 seconds.
“[The victory] means a lot,” Vandeputte said after the race. “I’ve been riding very well this season. I’ve been in the top four for every race, apart from [Saturday]. So to finally take the big win in the big race, it means a lot.”
There were many lead changes in the fast and very tactical race and it took most of the 11 laps to whittle down a large lead group to five riders. In the final lap, it came down to a mano a mano between Vandeputte and Iserbyt, with the winner having a little more in the tank at the end.
“I think technically I rode a very good race, and in the end, I just had the most power left,” he said. “To say I’m the strongest, it’s hard to say. It was a mix between strength and technique today, and I think I had the right combination of both.”
As for Nys, he came out of his crash bloodied but unbowed. “At the time of the crash, the fight for the win was already over for me,” he said. “I had to let go a bit and got slightly off track, and I think I hit a pole with my pedal or handlebars, which catapulted me. It was a huge crash.”
He said he came away from the accident without serious injury. “It’s not too bad. My neck is a bit stiff, and I have trouble moving my knee, but all in all, it’s not too severe. I’ll visit the physio, do some easy cycling, and then it should be fine.”
Nys was more upset about having lost Saturday’s Superprestige Merksplas Aardbeincross because of a tactical error. “I’m less disappointed than yesterday, when I really felt like I missed out on something,” he said. “I feel that way today too, but with a different mindset. The strongest and smartest rider won the race, but it’s a shame. It’s been two days where I performed at a very high level, but I’m going home without a win.”
Saturday’s race was won by a back-in-form Laurens Sweeck (Crelan-Corendon), who took his second Superprestige race in a row when he first out-thought his rivals and then out-kicked them at the end of a race on a dry and fast course that was very much like Sunday’s race. The 30-year-old Belgian was scarcely noticed in the first two-thirds of the Aardbeiencross and waited until midway on the ninth, and final, lap to surge to the front and ride away from a nine-rider lead group.
This was a completely different winning strategy than in his previous Superprestige win, in Niel, when he led the race from start to finish with a daring solo. “I didn’t have the legs to force my way to the front the entire race,” Sweeck said Saturday. “At the right moment I still found some breath to make a move to the front. In the last lap I had to maintain my position to launch another attack. Then I just had to hope that no one else would come over.”
No one came over, as most of the riders had expended a great deal of energy in a very tactical race in which it was difficult to open and maintain large gaps and which ended with Nys castigating himself for letting the win slip away.
“I think I did everything perfectly up until that last half-lap, where I was way too passive and too lax,” he said. “If you still feel like you have the power to correct things, that’s nice. But I didn’t get that opportunity anymore because I waited too long. I have to be disappointed about that, a lost victory.”
A number of riders took turns at the front of the race, including Michael Vanthourenhout (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), Toon Aerts (Deschacht-Hens-FSP), Orts, Vandeputte, and, of course, Nys. Vanthourenhout’s teammate Eli Iserbyt did his best to slow rivals down by, among other things, dismounting and dragging his bicycle sideways on a particularly tricky downhill curve.
But going into the final lap, nine riders were still in contention, and Sweeck had finally moved up towards the front. Known as an excellent sand rider, he did not wait for the sand pit to make his winning move, perhaps because it was neither deep nor heavy enough to enable riders to use it to their advantage.
“I didn’t have the impression that the difference was going to be made there,” he explained. “Everyone rode through it quite quickly. I felt that Michael (Vantourenhout) and Toon (Aerts) were plateauing a bit, because of their earlier attempts to attack. Then I didn’t hesitate to go for it.”
In fact, most of the riders involved in the race-long tactical back-and-forth didn’t make the podium, with Aerts finishing second and the new Superprestige series leader, Lars van der Haar (Baloise Trek Lions), finishing third courtesy of his teammate Nys, who slowed down in the final 50 meters to let him pass.
“I never fought for the victory, but I got a gift from Thibau, and that’s very nice,” van der Haar said. “I really appreciate that. The Superprestige is about the final points, and for a long time, I thought it would be difficult to catch up to Niels Vandeputte, so this is very nice.”
Considering his difficult start, it was an impressive performance by the Dutch rider. “I got my shorts caught on my saddle, so I was immediately far behind,” he said with a laugh. “I wasn’t in the race at all during the first half and really struggled. Eventually, I managed to get through.”
Van der Haar can afford to laugh, for he now leads the standings in both the Superprestige, which is decided by points, and the X20 Trofee, in which time is the decisive factor, as in a season-long stage race.
