Laurens Sweeck turned on the turbo and easily outsprinted his rivals to take his second World Cup Cyclo-Cross victory on Sunday in Beekse Bergen, NL. Lars van der Haar took second, and Michael Vanthourenhout was third.
How It Happened
After a fast start, Kevin Kuhn of Switzerland took the lead on lap 1, followed by Laurens Sweeck and Lars van der Haar.
By lap 2, van der Haar had taken the lead followed by Sweeck and newly crowned European Champion, Michael Vanthourenhout.
With Van der Haar pushing the pace, the trio increased their lead and by the start of lap 3/8 they had a gap of ten seconds on their main rivals.
Sweeck took up the lead in lap 3/8 and maintained the trio’s pace until they crossed the line for lap 4/8 and slowed down.
With the pause in the trio’s pace, van der Haar’s teammate, Joris Nieuwenhuis, was able to bridge up to the leaders, bringing the lead group up to four.
As the four leaders hit the line for lap 5/8, the closet group behind was now at 12 seconds.
Joris Nieuwenhuis then took the lead and set the pace for most of lap 5/8.
Going into lap 6/8, Nieuwenhuis looked strong and continued to lead with Vanthourenhout on his wheel.
Shortly thereafter, the lead shifted to Vanthourenhout who eased up the pace to help his teammate Eli Iserbyt catch up.
With Iserbyt not far behind, Sweeck realized the danger and picked up the pace again as they hit the line for lap 7/8.
Keeping the pace high, Sweeck was able to open a large gap on the straightaway, but was eventually shut down by Vanthourenhout.
With one lap to go, Sweeck and Vanthourenhout had a gap of a few seconds on van der Haar and the others.
Van der Haar managed to close the gap as the finish approached and it was three leaders, Sweeck, Vanthourenhout, and van der Haar.
In the final lap, Vanthourenhout tried one last time to gap his rivals but was unable.
As the leaders approached the final sections of the last lap, Iserbyt joined them.
Coming into the last turn before the finish, it was Vanthourenhout who took the lead with Sweeck following.
Sweeck opened up his sprint early and made it a drag race to the line ahead of van der Haar and Vanthourenhout, who finished second and third.
Full Results
