Dendermonde dominance from Wout van Aert! Visma star takes first World Cup victory of the winter in mudfest

Wout van Aert has completed a dream weekend in Belgium, adding a first World Cup victory of the season in dominant style at World Cup Dendermonde, to his Saturday success in Gullegem.

As seen in the women's race earlier in the afternoon, the Dendermonde course was an absolute swamp, packed full of gloopy mud and sopping muddles. With riders finding it hard to create separation on the opening lap, the field was pretty closely packed as they entered the pits for the first time. Sadly for Ryan Kamp and a few others, the chaos caused by almost the entire race attempting to enter the pits at the same time did ensure that some unlucky riders got caught up in crashes.

At the front of the race though, Toon Aerts was doing all the early pace-setting on lap 1, with Wout van Aert slowly working his way through the pack, having not started on the front row. At the start of lap 2, Van Aert shoqed himself at the head for the first time, immediately distancing Aerts and Pim Ronhaar, although Emiel Verstrynge managed to stay in touch.

Before too long though, Verstrynge too had been distanced by the incredibly impressive Van Aert, who continued to put the power down and ride away from the rest of the field. Behind the lone leader, Verstrynge was a comfortable 2nd, although the fight for the final spot on the podium was also starting to be separated, with Ronhaar getting distanced by Aerts.

Despite Van Aert making a couple of errors, even sliding out and hitting the deck late on lap 6, Van Aert's near minute of advantage, even this gave him little cause for concern in terms of the victory. Nearly two minutes down, World Cup leader Michael Vanthourenhout, who had curiously made the decision to wear white shorts in this proper cyclocross mudfest, had clawed his way up back to 5th after a slow start.

In fact, by the time the final lap got underway, Vanthourenhout was right back into the fight for the final spot on the podium with Joran Wyseure and Toon Aerts. There was no question of the winner though, as Van Aert romped to a dominant first World Cup victory of his reduced winter.