Brand and Vanthourenhout Open the Winter Cyclocross in Dendermonde

Lucinda Brand won by one second. Michael Vanthourenhout won by two. Those are the Dendermonde cyclocross 2026 results in a sentence, and they tell you how tight the first televised elite races of the European winter were. On Sunday 11 October, at the opening round of the new HG Cross series, seven riders finished within two seconds of a winner. Brand, the world champion, attacked in the final half-lap and held off Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and Denise Betsema. Vanthourenhout attacked at the bell, got clear when Joran Wyseure slipped in the sand, and led a Pauwels Sauzen-Altez Industriebouw one-two ahead of his teammate Yordi Corsus.

Two weeks ago we wrote that the season had started without the cameras. Dendermonde turned them on. Below is everything you need from Sunday: both podiums and top tens, how each race was won lap by lap, what Pauwels Sauzen did to the men’s race, why the Dutch women filled the first five places, and what the series looks like from here.

Dendermonde cyclocross 2026 results: both elite podiums

The elite women started at 13:45 and raced seven laps. The elite men started at 15:00 and raced ten. Both ran on a redesigned circuit in Grembergen, on the edge of Dendermonde, laid out by former world champion Mario De Clercq. According to Brújula Bike’s preview, the finish moved from the Hamsesteenweg to the Compost Vermeiren grounds, the pit area moved with it, and one of the sand slopes was turned around so that riders had to run up it instead of riding down. The circuit kept its stairs, short climbs, cobbles, sand, a bridge and an undulating section.

The bigger change was the date. Dendermonde has hosted World Cup rounds in midwinter, when the course is heavy and the gaps are long. In October it was dry and fast, and IDL Pro Cycling reported that the speed kept the gaps small for most of both races. Vanthourenhout had predicted exactly that before the start: more changes of direction and a front group that would stay together longer. He was right, and he was the one who used it best.

Read the two boards together and the pattern is obvious. Neither race produced a long solo. Both were decided in the final lap by a rider who had been patient for most of the hour and then hit the hardest part of the course harder than anybody else. Brand’s winning time was 47:03 for seven laps. Vanthourenhout’s was 59:20 for ten. The margins at the line were one second and two seconds.

How Vanthourenhout won the men’s race

The men’s race belonged to one team for an hour and to one rider for the last lap. Pauwels Sauzen-Altez Industriebouw lined out the 50-rider field from the start, according to Cyclingnews, and Gerben Kuypers led the first lap with Cameron Mason of 777TV close behind. Pim Ronhaar of Baloise Lions punctured early and spent the rest of the afternoon riding back through the field. He finished 15th.

By the fourth lap Victor Van de Putte of Charles Liégeois was leading a group that included Vanthourenhout, Wyseure, Kuypers, Mason and Ryan Kamp. Nobody could get clear. At halfway Corsus was on the front of a 13-rider group, with Laurens Sweeck of Crelan-Corendon near the back of it. Pauwels Sauzen kept opening small gaps and Wyseure kept closing them. Sporza’s live coverage described him chasing down Vanthourenhout and Kuypers together, then Kuypers on his own.

The first real split came on the fifth lap. Corsus, Wyseure, Vanthourenhout and Kuypers pushed the pace on the sandy climb and opened a small gap. Witse Meeussen of Crelan-Corendon led the chase, with Van de Putte, Niels Vandeputte of Alpecin-Premier Tech, Kamp and Mason. On the seventh lap the four leaders were seven seconds clear, and Cyclingnews saw Pauwels Sauzen play the team card openly: its riders sat up in a technical section to let Kuypers go. That forced Crelan-Corendon to spend energy chasing. Wyseure surged and lost traction in a corner.

It still did not stick. The four started the eighth lap with Vandeputte six seconds behind, Kamp at ten and Mason in a group of three at 17. The chase came back together across the pump track, and Mason and Meeussen rejoined. Sporza had Wyseure accelerating again on that lap and splitting the leaders into three groups. On the ninth lap the front group was six riders, with Kamp hanging on at the back. At the line with one lap to go, Sporza’s split read Vanthourenhout, Wyseure, Corsus at one second, Kuypers, Vandeputte at two, Kamp at four, Meeussen at five, Mason at six and Van de Putte. Nine riders could still win.

Vanthourenhout attacked as the bell rang. Wyseure sprinted onto his wheel and the move looked finished. Vandeputte, the fastest finisher in the group, sat on fourth wheel and waited for a sprint that never came. On the sand and the crest that followed it, Vanthourenhout rode cleanly and Wyseure did not. IDL Pro Cycling counted two mistakes by Wyseure on the final lap. Sporza called one of them a rare error in the sand. Either way, it opened the gap, and once he had it, Vanthourenhout accelerated and rode away from the whole group.

“I actually had an idea in my head the whole race to put everything into that final lap,” he said afterwards, according to Cyclingnews. That is the honest summary of his race. He did not win the most laps or make the most moves. He waited for the one moment when the course and his rivals’ legs gave him a gap, and he took it.

Behind him the sprint for second was decided by centimetres. Corsus took second, two seconds down. Wyseure and Kuypers crossed together on the same time, and the finish photo gave third to Wyseure. Sporza’s live blog first reported a Pauwels Sauzen one-two-three before correcting it at 16:06. Vandeputte was fifth at four seconds, Meeussen sixth at 12, Kamp seventh at 15, Mason eighth at 18, Van de Putte ninth at 34 and Toon Vandebosch tenth at 50.

Pauwels Sauzen against everyone else

The result sheet shows a team result as much as an individual one. Pauwels Sauzen-Altez Industriebouw put Vanthourenhout first, Corsus second and Kuypers fourth. Three more of its riders, Anton Ferdinande, Viktor Vandenberghe and Kay De Bruyckere, finished 11th, 12th and 13th. That is six riders in the top 13 from one team in a 50-rider field.

There was an extra edge to it. The race is organised by Jurgen Mettepenningen, who also runs the Pauwels Sauzen team. Sporza noted that Vanthourenhout’s win was the first by a Pauwels Sauzen rider in Mettepenningen’s own race. Corsus told Sporza that racing for his own team’s boss on home ground gave him extra motivation, and that second place felt very good. Paul Herygers, commentating for Sporza, said on air that Corsus was becoming a stronger rider. On Sunday he was strong enough to beat everyone except his teammate.

The rider who did most to stop it was Wyseure. For most of the race the lead group was three Pauwels Sauzen riders and him. He closed gap after gap, he forced the eighth-lap split himself, and he was on Vanthourenhout’s wheel when the final attack came. He told Sporza he felt he had ridden a good tactical race and that one mistake in the sand let Vanthourenhout go. He also said he was empty on the last lap and glad to be on the podium. Both things can be true. Three against one is a hard fight to win for an hour, and he lost it by two seconds and one slide.

The bigger name who missed out was Vandeputte. Brújula Bike’s preview had him as the main favourite. He spent most of the race out of the lead, came forward on the seventh lap, sat in the right place for a sprint on the eighth and ninth, and then never got the sprint. Fifth at four seconds is a good opening result. It is not what he came for. Sweeck, who has won in Dendermonde before, was not in the top 15.

Two results outside the podium are worth a second look. Kamp’s seventh place was the first result for Bomba JOIN, the new team run by Laurens ten Dam and Stefan Bolt. Mees Hendrikx finished 17th for the same team. And Mason, eighth at 18 seconds, was the best non-Belgian and non-Dutch rider in the race. IDL Pro Cycling noted that he rode much of the climbing section that most of the field ran. Five riders did not finish, among them Federico Ceolin of FAS Airport Services-Guerciotti.

Brand’s one-second win in the women’s race

The women’s race was a slow build to a fast finish. Brand took the front from the first lap, Cyclingnews reported, and set the pace without attacking. Alvarado and Betsema shared the work with her. For three laps a large group stayed together, with Inge van der Heijden and Aniek van Alphen often on the front, according to IDL Pro Cycling. France’s Amandine Fouquenet, one of the names expected to contend, had withdrawn before the start, Sporza reported.

The fourth lap thinned the field. Marion Norbert Riberolle, the Belgian champion, attacked, then went backwards. Sporza reported she was visibly unwell and vomited before she stopped. Leonie Bentveld, the under-23 world champion, made a move of her own. At the end of the lap Sporza had Brand first, Bentveld one second back, then Van der Heijden and Alvarado, with Lucia Bramati at nine seconds and Hélène Clauzel at 11. Brand briefly got clear on that lap, IDL Pro Cycling reported, but slipped and lost the gap.

On the fifth lap she accelerated hard and only Alvarado could follow. For a lap the two world-class riders raced shoulder to shoulder through the corners. Behind them Van der Heijden, Betsema and Van Alphen were close, Bentveld was five seconds back and Kristýna Zemanová eight. On the sixth lap Brand attacked again on the sandy climb and the group came apart. Alvarado was three seconds behind at the end of the lap, Betsema seven, Van Alphen eight and Van der Heijden 23.

Then the race came back together, which is what made the finish interesting. On the last lap Alvarado and Betsema both caught Brand. Brand had to lead the three of them for much of the lap. She did not slow down and try to play tactics. She rode at the front, and on the last half-lap she attacked one more time. Neither Alvarado nor Betsema could answer. Brand crossed the line one second ahead of Alvarado and two ahead of Betsema.

“It was not an easy race, the level was really close to each other on a difficult course with so many corners,” Brand said, according to Cyclingnews. She told Sporza that nobody handed her the win: she rode as hard as she could into a headwind on the final stretch so that nobody could come past. “It’s very important, it’s always good to kick off in a good way,” she added to Cyclingnews.

The Dutch top five, and three stories behind it

The first five places in the women’s race all went to Dutch riders: Brand, Alvarado, Betsema, Van Alphen and Van der Heijden. Seven of the top ten were Dutch, with Bentveld seventh and Annemarie Worst ninth. The exceptions were Zemanová of Czechia in sixth, Bramati of Italy in eighth and Julie Brouwers of Belgium in tenth. Kaya Musgrave, third in the USCX standings we covered two weeks ago, was the best American in 18th.

Each of the three podium riders brought a story to the start line. Brand is the world champion, and before Sunday she had already won in Dendermonde four times, according to Brújula Bike. She has also just made a career decision. She told Cyclingnews she is leaving Lidl-Trek on the road but staying with the Baloise Lions cyclocross set-up, and IDL Pro Cycling reported she has signed a new contract with Sven Nys’s team. Asked by Sporza about her 100 kilograms of mussels, she said, in CFP’s translation, that her grandmother would be eating them for a long time.

Alvarado, the 2023 winner in Dendermonde, told Sporza she had not expected to be this close. She had COVID during her preparation, and she put her late mistakes down to her heart rate climbing under pressure. Second by one second, after that build-up, is a strong sign for her winter.

Betsema’s third place may be the most important result of the three. She told Sporza that her crash in 2025 affected her more than she had admitted at the time, and that she is working again with her former coach, Tom De Kort. Brújula Bike singled out her podium as the standout ride of the day. She was seven seconds down after the sixth lap and still caught the world champion.

Behind the podium, Van Alphen was the best of the rest at 14 seconds, and Van der Heijden, the European champion, held on for fifth at 34 seconds after leading much of the early race. Bentveld was seventh at 44 seconds after her fourth-lap move. Worst finished ninth for Brand’s Baloise Lions team at 1:11.

What Dendermonde means for the HG Cross and the winter

Dendermonde was the first of seven HG Cross rounds. The series replaces the Exact Cross after four years under that name, and HG has signed as title sponsor for 2026-27 and 2027-28 with an option on a third year, according to Brújula Bike. There is no overall classification. Each of the seven races, Dendermonde, Meulebeke, Heerde, Lokeren, Mol, Maldegem and Sint-Niklaas, stands on its own. Each elite winner gets 350 euros and 100 kilograms of mussels for their fan club. Vanthourenhout said he would share his with his supporters and the people around him.

No series table means nobody leads anything after Sunday. What Dendermonde does give is a first ranking of form. Brand is already winning, even if not by much. Alvarado and Betsema are close enough to beat her. In the men’s race, Pauwels Sauzen showed it can control a race with numbers, and Wyseure showed he is the rider most able to fight that on his own.

Look, too, at who was missing. Mathieu van der Poel, the men’s cyclocross world champion, said after the road Worlds that he had not yet thought about the winter, and none of the big road names appear on Sunday’s result sheet. The other major series start in the coming weeks: the Superprestige in Overijse on 25 October, the X2O Trofee on the Koppenberg on 1 November and the World Cup on 27 November. Until the stars arrive, the specialists are deciding the races among themselves, and on Sunday they did it by one and two seconds.

So which of the two results tells us more about the winter ahead: Brand winning again, or how close Alvarado and Betsema came to stopping her? We will update these Dendermonde cyclocross 2026 results with any corrections, and we will be back after the next round.

Sources

• Cyclingnews — HG Cross: Vanthourenhout solo victory in Dendermonde as Pauwels Sauzen go 1-2 (report, results, quote)
• Cyclingnews — HG Cross: Lucinda Brand wins in Dendermonde (report, results, quotes)
• IDL Pro Cycling — Vanthourenhout wins as Pauwels Sauzen dominate; Bomba JOIN debut
• IDL Pro Cycling — Lucinda Brand shines in the rainbow jersey at Dendermonde
• Sporza — men’s live coverage, lap splits and rider interviews (Dutch)
• Sporza — women’s live coverage, lap splits and rider interviews (Dutch)
• Brújula Bike — Vanthourenhout and Brand win as the Belgian season gets underway
• Cyclingnews — van der Poel’s road season over, cyclocross plans open (citing Wielerflits)
• Brújula Bike — preview: redesigned course, favourites, HG Cross format and prizes

Related reading

• The season started without the cameras: USCX 2026 standings before Europe began
• Our cyclocross 2026–2027 season preview: calendars, courses and the star problem
• Who is Fem van Empel?
• More race results

CFP is a cycling news digest. This report is built from the independent coverage listed above. It covers the elite men’s and elite women’s races only. Times and gaps are as published by Cyclingnews and Sporza on 11 October 2026. The Cyclingnews men’s table did not print gaps for Wyseure and Kuypers; IDL Pro Cycling lists both at +0:02, and Sporza confirms the finish photo placed Wyseure third. Team names follow IDL Pro Cycling and the Cyclingnews race narrative where the Cyclingnews results table differs. Sporza’s live coverage gives ten laps for the men’s race in its header but refers to the lap count inconsistently in its live entries; CFP uses ten. Rider comments credited to Sporza are CFP’s translations from Dutch and are paraphrased unless shown in quotation marks. Lap-by-lap gaps are Sporza’s on-screen splits as reported live. The 25 October, 1 November and 27 November series dates are from CFP’s earlier calendar reporting via Sporza and the organisers.