29/10/2023

Lars van der Haar takes solo victory in Maasmechelen for first World Cup win in nearly two years

Lars van der Haar has powered his way to victory in Maasmechelen in a chaotic round of UCI World Cup action. Eli Iserbyt and Laurens Sweeck completing the podium.

With overtaking opportunities relatively few and far between on the Maasmechelen course it was key to get off to a good start. The best at the end of the first lap were Michael Vanthourenthout and Pim Ronhaar with the duo gaining an advantage over the rest of the field in the early stages.

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By the end of lap 2 though, Lars van der Haar had dragged the chasers back into contact with Vanthourenhout, who looked to have an issue with Ronhaar remaining a narrow leader.

Over the next lap and a half, Ronhaar continued to dangle, tantalisingly out in front of the chasing pack before Eli Iserbyt completed the catch with the front of the race becoming a trio of Ronhaar, Iserbyt and Thibau Nys.

As Nys began to put the hammer down, a couple of errors began to happen, first one from Iserbyt saw the World Cup leader begin to stretch an advantage before Nys then got his handlebars caught allowing his rival to get back in contact.

The next rider to try and attack was van der Haar and as Iserbyt and Nys both made more errors, the Dutchman was soon out front solo.

With five laps gone, van der Haar was really pressing his advantage as behind, Nys whilst not catching the Dutch national champion was beginning to ride clear of the rest in second.

Despite having had a number of errors, the aggressive riding of Eli Iserbyt was keeping him in contact and he managed to drag his way back to Nys on lap 7 and after overtaking the young Belgian, Iserbyt began to hunt down van der Haar.

At the bell, van der Haar had 17 seconds lead over Iserbyt, with Nys closely behind him. That gap proved more than enough for victory for the Dutchman but a late crash for Nys saw him drop down and allowed Iserbyt to ease to second. Also benefitting from the Nys crash was - who secured third.