Mathieu van der Poel remains unbeaten - Despite challenge from Wout van Aert, World Champion wins first cross of the year in Baal

Eight victories out of eight for Mathieu van der Poel. Despite different tactics from Wout van Aert at the GP Sven Nys, nothing could be done to stop the World Champion from taking another dominant victory.

Wout van Aert had a convincing start and tried to race differently this time around, taking the holeshot and pushing a serious pace over the first minutes of the race. Under very muddy and treacherous conditions, the two quickly stood apart from the rest as van Aert anticipated an early attack from the World Champion.

Pim Ronhaar joined them on a great performance but under the pace of van Aert the race remained rather stable. It didn't take too long however for the winning gap to be made, it was in the second lap of the GP Sven Nys that van der Poel opened a gap in a mud section where van Aert could not stay on the bike. A small gap grew into a decent one, and then slowly into over a minute.

Van der Poel was unmatched throughout most of the race and took his eighth win of the season - and first of 2024. Van Aert and Ronhaar battled for a few laps for second place however the Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider came through to finish second almost two minutes off the winner. Ronhaar was still third. Lars van der Haar solidified his lead in the X2O Badkamers Trofee as Eli Iserbyt was absent from the action.