PREVIEW | Cyclocross World Cup Hulst 2024-2025 Men & Women - Favourites, Track, TV Guide & Poll

World Cup Hulst will be the first race of a very important weekend, one that will have two World Cup rounds and also starts off the 'Christmas block'. In here we will have many of the world's best battling, only days before Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert make their comeback.

A grey, windy and cold day in Hulst, with rain likely to be added to the mix to make things more treacherous. The terrain will certainly be muddy from rain of past days and the extensive riding on track. The start is relatively fast and flat, with a couple of tight corners and off-camber sections to string things out. It's a technical course with plenty dismounting sections, short explosive efforts and is overall quite different then last week's climber-suited tracks.

*** Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado
** Marie Schreiber, Lucinda Brand
* Blanka Kata Vas, Puck Pieterse, Zoe Bäckstedt

Prediction: Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado

Almost 100 riders at the start, mayhem is predicted but Fem van Empel will not be present due to injury this week. Lucinda Brand will look to try and take full advantage of this situation to increase her lead in the World Cup. In such a course, she will not have the best of chances to indeed take the win, I expect her to be challenged quite a lot by Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado whilst Puck Pieterse is also very technically gifted and could benefit from this course. The Dutch also bring in quality riders in Inge van der Heijden, Annemarie Worst, Manon Bakker and Leonie Bentvelt capable of fighting for a Top5 at their best.

The main challenger should come in the form of Marie Schreiber who is a very strong started and is capable of handling well these explosive technical circuits. Her and teammate Blanka Kata Vas could be very dangerous in the pursuit for victory, whilst fellow youngster Zoe Bäckstedt may not be too far either.

We should count on the likes of Laura Verdonschot, Marion Norbert Riberolle, Hélène Clauzel, Sara Casasola and new USA champion Vida Lopez de San Roman to make things interesting in the fight for a top result.

*** Thibau Nys
** Laurens Sweeck, Michael Vanthourenhout
* Niels Vandeputte, Toon Aerts, Pim Ronhaar

Prediction: Thibau Nys

Another unpredictable race, as many have been throughout this season. 1 day before Mathieu van der Poel and 2 days before Wout van Aert return to cyclocross, we have another duel between the pure specialist. Michael Vanthourenhout takes on another round of the World Cup after winning the last two, form is great at the moment for the Belgian but in this course he may not have the rhythm to take another win. It's more explosive than other races and very hard to get a rhythm, he will be a favourite for win but this course suits better the likes of his compatriots Laurens Sweeck... Eli Iserbyt (nerve injury); Thibau Nys (recent crashes) and Niels Vandeputte (recent illness) are all well suited to this course but come into the race after a non-ideal few weeks.

The Belgians also have Toon Aerts who is also in great form and is second in the cup, Joran Wyseure and Emiel Verstrynge who surprised to a massive podium result in Namur. The Dutch have Pim Ronhaar and Lars van der Haar, two quality riders but two who will not enjoy the large amount of running and dismounting necessary here.

We've got in the 'international list' Felipe Orts, Michael Boros, Kevin Kuhn, David Menut, Andrew Strohmeyer and the returning Cameron Mason who are capable of fighting for a Top10.

The women's race will start at 13:40 and end at around 14:30 local time. The men's race will start at 15:10 and end at 16:15 local time.

You can watch the broadcast of the race at the UCI website and Eurosport/Max internationally, as well as the traditional outlets. The channels which will broadcast the race will include Telenet Playsports and PickxSports (Belgium).