The UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships marked the climax of the CX season this weekend. Seven gold medals across three days, and plenty of history – all on a thrilling and dynamic Hulst course in the Netherlands. While the results went largely the way you'd imagine, there were a couple of stand-out races that offered an unexpected result, and nearly all but one – guess who? – was action-packed until the last lap.
At CX Worlds, you very rarely get a true surprise winner, as sometimes happens in major championships on the road, which is to say that CX is typically better at crowning 'the best' of the season than other two-wheeled disciplines, except perhaps track. And while Mathieu van der Poel's eighth elite CX world title win was not exactly a thriller, any other result would have felt a little off somehow. This is the man who kicked off a 12-race winning streak at Namur in November – starting a week earlier than anticipated because he was bored of training – including eight rounds of the World Cup, and winning the overall classification for only the second time.
Van der Poel turned up at his home Worlds with momentum filling his sails; it seemed only his own error or a catastrophic mechanical could keep him from victory.
When I started cycling, the dream was to become world champion one day in the elite category, and now to having the most [men's] titles of all time, it’s incredible.”
– Mathieu van der Poel
The same could be said for a few other newly-minted world champions, including Lucinda Brand, though unlike her compatriot, Brand arrived with some degree of doubt hanging over her after a disappointing weekend in the run-up. Even so, she's coming to the end of a sensational season during which she's dominated the World Cup, getting the overall classification polished off two rounds before the finale, and taken 18 wins in total before this weekend.
A calf complaint caused some concern during the week, but the 36-year-old was a picture of confidence on the start line in Hulst, and the terrific battle that ensued – against familiar rivals Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado and Puck Pieterse – was just about everything fans and followers could have asked for in her journey to the rainbow jersey.
This weekend’s winners:
- Team Relay (Jan 30) — The Netherlands (juniors Isis Versluis and Delano Heeren; under-23s Leonie Bentveld and Guus van den Eijnden; elites Shirin Van Anrooij and Tibor Del Grosso)
- Junior women (Jan 31) – Barbora Bukovská (Czechia)
- U23 men (Jan (31) – Aaron Dockx (Belgium)
- Elite women (Jan 31) – Lucinda Brand (Netherlands)
- Junior men (Feb 1) – Delano Heeren (Netherlands)
- U23 women (Feb 1) – Leonie Bentveld (Netherlands)
- Elite men (Feb 1) – Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands)
The familiar, if relatively new Hulst course was embellished for the pinnacle event of the 2025-26 season, this Worlds marking the 10th time CX has descended on Hulst’s 'star fort' (although it’s not always been held in exactly the same place, for instance, taking the circus out of the town centre during the pandemic). With a reversal of direction, an extra climb, pontoons and no less than five bridges, the course still straddles the moat, with familiar sections up on the grassy ramparts, and a fresh opportunity to put down the power on a newly-claimed meadow on the other side of the water – where space for 5,000 VIPs was set up. It's one of the harder courses in CX, and boy, does it look it.
This is our last bumper CX gallery of the 2025-26 season. Grab a cup of tea, or some frites and mayo, and get stuck in.
The steep ramparts of the historic fortifications make the Hulst course as beautiful as it is brutal.
The first ever winners at Hulst were CX superstars Sanne Cant and Mathieu van der Poel in 2017 (both pictured in 2019 when Cant had just won her third consecutive world title, and would have been in rainbows for that first edition in Hulst; Van der Poel, however, had not worn the rainbow bands since Wout van Aert began his three-year streak in 2016).
Lucinda Brand has won at Hulst once while world champion in early 2022, Puck Pieterse then picked up the mantle and won twice in a row, and Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado took the win in 2020 – all the ingredients for a thriller at the 2026 World Champs.
The last elite riders to win at Hulst, round four of the World Cup in 2024-25, were Marie Schreiber (Brand and Pieterse second and third, respectively) and Niels Vandeputte, ahead of Felipe Orts and Pim Ronhaar (no Van der Poel or Wout van Aert). Schreiber has been struggling with her form since getting injured at Koppenbergcross, while Vandeputte has had a very good season, his form delivering three wins, multiple podiums, and third in the World Cup overall classification behind Van der Poel and Thibau Nys. However, he was rumoured to be afflicted with the food poisoning that spread through the hotel Team Belgium shared with Luxembourg at the Hulst Worlds.
One of the most expectant storylines of the weekend, which has been building up for well over a year, was the prospect of Van der Poel's eighth elite CX world title, which would see him move ahead of Eric De Vlaeminck who won seven between 1966 and 1973 (he was unable to defend his first, but after missing out to Renato Longo in 1967 (5th), he took six in a row). With eight, Van der Poel draws alongside Marianne Vos, who put the first mark on the board in 2006 aged just 18, then took six in a row (2009-2014), her eighth coming at Fayetteville in 2022.
The weekend kicked off with the team relay on Friday, in which the super-strong Netherlands lineup, racing the event for the first time since taking the win at Hoogerheide in 2023, got the job done. It was up to each individual nation to decide the order in which their riders would take to the course, and after strong early turns from under-23 Guus van Eijnden and junior Delano Heeren, the Netherlands sealed the victory with late surges from elites Shirin Van Anrooij and Tibor Del Grosso, picking up from junior Isis Versluis and under-23 Leonie Bentveld who held strong in the middle laps. It later transpired that 16-year-old Versluis had broken her finger when she collided with Sara Casasola while trying to overtake the elite rider and was ruled out of her race on Saturday.
Italy had led the race for three laps, but were confined to second, with the Belgian team third, led by Niels Vandeputte who narrowly set the fastest lap of the event.
Team Relay top 5
- Netherlands — 47:06
- Italy — +0:16
- Belgium — +0:37
- Great Britain — +0:41
- France — +0:47
Junior Women top 5
- Barbora Bukovská (Czechia) 44:55
- Lise Revol (France) +0:15
- Lucie Grohová (Czechia) +0:35
- Giorgia Pellizotti (Italy) +0:44
- Shana Huber (Switzerland) +0:48
Dockx caught onto Sparfel's wheel in the fifth lap.
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