Results World Cup Antwerp | Mathieu van der Poel on top and Wout van Aert on hold in Antwerp

Lucinda Brand took the victory in the women's World Cup Antwerp and as expected, the men's race was dominated by the ultimate favourite. Mathieu van der Poel did not give anyone a chance in the fourth round of the World Cup and has taken a comfortable solo win, the second out of two in his season so far.

The race began with Joris Nieuwenhuis taking to the front and putting pressure on the field right away. With van der Poel and Van Aert having a start far away from the front row, there were gaps that needed to be closed. But this did not prove to be an issue for the World Champion who made his way through the field. Finishing lap 1 it was Alpecin's van der Poel and Tibor del Grosso, joined by Nieuwenhuis.

But van der Poel shortly after took off, making his winning move and opening a big gap quickly. Thibau Nys and Michael Vanthourenhout in the meantime were suffering quite a lot, battling their way just inside, or quite outside the Top10 in Nys' case. A completely different image than that of last week in Namur.

Laurens Sweeck stood out as best of the rest giving chase to van der Poel in the sandy race, whilst on lap 5 Wout van Aert suffered a puncture and lost further time in his fight for a podium spot. Van der Poel himself suffered a puncture on lap 7 and saw half of his gap to Sweeck being cut, but this never jeopardized his victory. Crelan's Laurens Sweeck and Emiel Verstrynge finished second and third on the day whilst van Aert rode home in seventh place.