Heusden-Zolder is a race that always feels faster than it looks. The Terlaemen circuit rewards riders who can hold speed through corners, then hit the short climbs without spiking too hard. On a dry, high-tempo afternoon, that blend produced two finales defined by timing and nerve: Tibor Del Grosso out-lunging Wout van Aert in a two-man drag race, and Amandine Fouquenet detonating the women’s contest late when the chasing behind hesitated.
Van Aert left without the win again, but not without conviction. “I am disappointed. When it’s as close as it was today, it’s always a shame to lose,” he said. “It was an intense battle… I could feel that we were evenly matched.” Then, with a nod to the finishing straight and a headwind that made every choice risky, he added: “It was sport at its purest. In the end, he was just the stronger of the two.”
The women’s race had a very different rhythm, built around a five-rider group that never fully settled, then one decisive acceleration that did.
In the absence of several headline names during the Kerstperiode, the early expectation was that Aniek van Alphen and European champion Inge van der Heijden would be central to how the race unfolded, with Blanka Vas returning to the mix and Fouquenet carrying the kind of form that had already made her one of the winter’s stories.
Vas showed that she had not come to Zolder to ride conservatively, but the front group quickly became a rotating cast at high speed, with Fouquenet repeatedly prodding on the course’s punchy climbs and technical sections. Marie Schreiber also made it into the lead group, giving the race a five-up shape that felt tense rather than controlled, with small surges and quick regroupings as nobody quite committed to doing the chase-killing work too early.
That pattern mattered when the winning move came. With the final laps approaching and the calculations sharpening, Fouquenet finally committed fully, launching a hard, clean acceleration on the second-to-last lap. It was the kind of attack that works best on a fast course, not because it creates a huge gap instantly, but because it forces everyone behind to decide, immediately, who is willing to pay the price.
Behind her, the hesitation was costly. Van Alphen later framed it as a mix of positioning, tactics, and the realities of riding for a series. “We were really a bit against each other,” she said of the physical fight with Vas for the podium positions. “It is a super-fast course… then it comes down to the last little bits.” On the moment that brought Van der Heijden into the trouble, she was blunt: “That corner… I didn’t think it was entirely neat. One of the three of us was going to be the victim. Now it was Inge. That’s not nice in this way.”
Vas, for her part, did not see it as crossing a line. “It was a normal fight for the corner,” she said. “Nobody wanted to brake, but that’s how it is.”
While that battle raged, Fouquenet simply kept going, holding her speed and lines to the finish for what she called the biggest victory of her career. “This is the greatest victory of my career,” she said. “Hopefully, this victory will earn me a new contract.”
2025 Heusden-Zolder Women result
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Photo Credit: Cor VosThe men’s race was built on a slow squeeze rather than an immediate split. A lead group formed early and kept reforming, with riders trying to use the dry conditions and long straights to stay in touch, then pouncing in the more technical sequences. Van Aert’s start was not straightforward, and he had to work to reach the front, but once he did, he began to shape the race with a familiar mix of force and intent.
By the middle phase, the elastic was stretched to its limit. Van Aert lifted the pace, Del Grosso read it perfectly, and the pair rode away from the front group with a clear sense that they had found the race’s decisive moment. From there it became a two-man test of discipline: Van Aert trying to turn pressure into separation, Del Grosso refusing to panic, matching the effort and choosing when to commit.
The final kilometres had the feeling of a duel that could swing either way. Van Aert kept trying to make the younger rider do more work, then tried to stress him again late on, but Del Grosso stayed smooth and protected his chances for the finish.
In the headwind on the run-in, Van Aert checked, waited, and launched, but Del Grosso timed his sprint to perfection, throwing the bike at the line to win by the smallest of margins. For Del Grosso it was his first elite victory, and he looked every bit like a rider who believed he belonged in that situation.
Van Aert, disappointed but clear-eyed, summed up the margins that decided it. “There was a strong headwind on the finish road. It was difficult to start the sprint from the front. In hindsight, I should perhaps have gone for it earlier, but then there was a risk that I would take Tibor with me in my slipstream.”
2025 Heusden-Zolder Men result
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