This race has allways been on the last sunday of november. This year the dutch province Drenthe was about to host the opening race of the Hans Grohe Superprestige. So this was to be the first of the big races for this season. Due to the long distance to Belgium some of the big riders skipped this event in former times, but now nearly all of them showed up at the track in Gieten.
Last year the race returned to it’s original location around a small lake of a former sandmine. Even though the drizzling rain produced a typical fall feeling, the track was not too much influenced by the humidity. Therefore both riders and spectators had to face a real high speed race.
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Allready having two wins on his palmares Eli Yserbit was the great favorite in the race of the juniors. As expected he took the initiative and managed a secure win in front of his teammate Max Gulickx. Johan Jacobs from Switzerland finished third.
The ladies race was dominated by a trio of Ellen van Loy, Sophie de Boer and Sanne Cant. For long it looked as if Ellen van Loy can take a profit of her running abilities, but at the end Sanne Cant outsprint van Loy and took the win. Sophie de Boer who started for her new team NNOF Kallas managed to take the last place on the podium. Sanne van Paassen who had to quit last years season early due to illness made her comeback to cross today and was totally happy to finish fourth after such a long time.
At the race of the U23 Wout van Aert showed his old strength and managed to take a clear win in front of Laurens and Diether Sweeck.
Before the main event was about to start, a minute of silence was held in commemoration of the late Marc van Landeghem who passed away during a visit at the road worlds in Ponferrada last Monday. Marc was the well respected press officer of all great belgian races an cross series.
Beeing asked about the main rivals, Sven Nys mentioned Mathieu van der Poel and Lars van der Haar. And as many times before he was about to be right in his guess. Nys had a really bad start and entered the field in 35th position while van der Poel an van der Haar led the peloton. Even though Mathieu van der Poel had some problems with his chain during the second round, he was about to write history on dutch ground.
Meanwhile Lars van der Haar and Kevin Pauwels took the lead while Mathieu van der Poel was thrown back to the region where Sven Nys was struggeling to gain positions. Now both, the belgian champion and the young dutchman fought together and soon the gained one position after the other. On the front Pauwels Power started to fade and van der Haar managed to increase the gap. It looked as if the dutch champion would be the undisputed winner of this race, but no one should ever praise a day before the end. While his young opponent managed to reduce the gap to the front, two laps before finish van der Haar still lead by half a minute. But when the last lap was about to start, the dutch champion looked around and realized that Mathieu van der Poel was sitting right in his wheel. Out of the sudden the race was open again. On the last but one climb in the sand section the young van der Poel emerged a last attack and rode away from van der Haar which seemed to get a bit tired. Even though the elder one tried to squeeze everything out of his body reach his young contender, he had to take second place behind Mathieu van der Poel. Sven Nys managed to take the last place of the podium by passing both Pauwels and his teammate Klaas Vantornout.