No alarms and no surprises. The World Cup's 10th round unfurled on the Costa Blanca on Sunday, heralding the beginning of the end of the cyclocross season. You might look at the results in Benidorm this weekend and emit a disgruntled sigh after yet another predictable outcome rewarding Lucinda Brand and Mathieu van der Poel, but there were layers upon layers, as always.
There are just two more rounds of the elite World Cup this season, both of them taking place next weekend with Maasmechelen on 24th January followed by Hoogerheide – a.k.a. Grand Prix Adrie van der Poel – on Sunday. The winter will then climax in Hulst, Belgium, for the World Championships the following weekend.
Now let's get stuck into the gallery, starting with a bit of a look back at the short history of World Cup Benidorm.
Though the margin of victory was never significant (never more than three seconds, in fact), Fem van Empel has dominated every year of the elite women's competition at Benidorm.
Among the elite men, the Costa Blanca has seen some brilliant battles, and, for once, no dominance. Van der Poel took the first-ever edition under the Spanish sun in January 2023, but it was no easy feat as Van Aert pushed him all the way to the line, leaving the Dutchman utterly exhausted.
One year later, both the top two were back for more. But this time, Van Aert came out on top, eventually taking the win despite having to defend his narrow advantage over Michael Vanthourenhout with no saddle in the last half lap – neither Van Aert nor Vanthourenhout were present this year, one through injury, the other out sick. Van der Poel finished an uncharacteristic fifth after taking a hard knock in the penultimate lap. That was a bloody good edition of the race, well worth checking out the highlights.
In the third and most recent edition, then-European champion Thibau Nys took the elite win two years after battling Tibor Del Grosso in the under-23 race – this is a course well suited to the young Belgian.
This fourth edition saw a few changes to the course, most significantly the relocation of the start-finish area onto the road climb. The old finish area, meanwhile, was replaced with, or rather covered in deep sand in an effort from the organisers to add more difficulty to the course they hope could stage the World Championships in 2031.
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