Lucinda Brand and Thibau Nys turned a heavy Hamme afternoon into twin statements of intent. Brand extended her astonishing podium streak to 50 cross races while tightening her grip on the X2O Badkamers Trofee, and a few hours later, Nys ground down Cameron Mason in a tense head-to-head for his second series win of the winter.
Brand controls the chaos to make it seven wins and fifty podiums
By the time Lucinda Brand rolled over the line in Hamme, arms aloft and mud streaked, the numbers almost said more than the gap behind her. Seventh victory from nine starts this season, third win in as many days and, most remarkably, her 50th consecutive podium in cyclocross. The last time she finished outside the top three was Benidorm World Cup in January 2024.
The Rectavit Flandriencross is not usually a race that lets anyone coast to milestones. The course west of Antwerp was exactly what you would expect in mid-November: mud that thickened as the laps ticked by, off cambers that punished any lapse in focus and a profile that never really settled. With world champion Fem van Empel and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado absent, the responsibility of shaping the race fell naturally on Brand, European champion Inge van der Heijden and the returning Marie Schreiber and Annemarie Worst.
Brand wasted no time. Not normally famed for explosive launches, she produced what she herself called “zomaar een goede start” and dived into the first technical section ahead of everyone else. That choice to lead from the front did two things at once: it allowed her to pick the cleanest lines on a treacherous circuit and immediately put pressure on Van der Heijden, who was the only rider able to respond.
By the end of the opening lap, Brand already had eleven seconds on the European champion. Aniek van Alphen, delayed by a couple of early errors, was fighting her way back into the top five, while Schreiber and Worst had far more ground to make up on their comeback outings.
For a moment in the second lap, it looked as if the race might tighten again. Brand slipped and hesitated in a couple of sections and Van der Heijden, reading the situation perfectly, chipped the advantage back to five seconds. The question hung in the mud: was this going to turn into a genuine two rider duel, or had Brand left enough in reserve?
The answer came quickly. As soon as she sensed the threat, Brand opened the taps again. She rode the rutted cambers with more commitment, carried more speed out of the corners and managed the bike changes without surrendering time. By halfway her lead was back out towards twelve seconds, helped by a few small mistakes from Van der Heijden, and from that point she kept the gap hovering in the 12 to 15 second range.
Behind them, Van Alphen and Schreiber were locked into their own private contest for third. The Luxembourg champion looked the stronger in pure power, driving away on the open, heavy sections, but Van Alphen was neater and more confident in the technical zones. Every lap they swapped roles, one edging clear then being reeled back as the terrain changed.
Up front, Brand stopped playing with the limits and started managing them. With the X2O Trofee timed on cumulative seconds and two previous wins already in her pocket, there was no incentive to take unnecessary risks. She controlled the effort, left no real openings for Van der Heijden and still took a 13-second buffer into the final lap.
Only in the closing minutes did she allow the elastic to soften slightly, easing enough that Van der Heijden could trim the final deficit to nine seconds but never enough to threaten the outcome. Van Alphen finally dropped Schreiber for good, only for drama to hit the Luxembourg rider in the finishing straight when she dropped her chain and was forced to shoulder the bike and sprint to the line on foot to cling on to fourth, just ahead of Julie Brouwers and Manon Bakker.
For Brand, the bigger story sat behind the stopwatch. Fifty consecutive podiums in a discipline that punishes the smallest weakness is almost unheard of.
“I am not really someone who thinks much about statistics, but this is very special,” she said afterwards. “For some people it might look obvious, but it really is not. I am very happy with it.”
She also sounded almost relieved to have the milestone behind her. “Everyone kept talking about that number 50. Now it is done, and we can move on,” she laughed, keen to shift the attention back to racing rather than records.
Van der Heijden, the rider who has pushed Brand most consistently this winter, was quick to underline its significance. “It is incredibly special and impressive that she is constantly on the podium. I can only be jealous of that,” the European champion said. “I am trying to follow my own path, but it is great that we can take each other on like this.”
In the X2O Trofee standings, Brand’s win adds even more weight. With three rounds completed and all three won, she now holds a lead of more than four minutes over Van der Heijden on cumulative time. The series is already firmly in her hands.
2025 X2O Trofee Flandriencross Hamme Women result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Nys finally breaks Mason after an hour of pressure and small mistakes
If the women’s race in Hamme was defined by long-range control, the men’s event was all about sustained pressure and tiny slips in the mud. After ten laps that never really eased, Belgian champion Thibau Nys emerged from a gripping duel with Cameron Mason to take his second win of the series, while series leader Joris Nieuwenhuis salvaged third after a miserable opening corner.
The Flandriencross layout, already churned by the elite women, offered deep ruts, slick cambers and a long sequence of power sections that rewarded riders who could produce repeated, sharp accelerations. Newly crowned European champion Toon Aerts, still feeling the effects of illness after his emotional title win in Middelkerke, was a non-starter, which left much of the expectation on Nys and Nieuwenhuis.
The race went sideways for the Dutchman almost immediately. While Niels Vandeputte led the field into the first left-hander and onto the opening muddy stretch, Nieuwenhuis hit the deck on a corner and was forced into an early bike change, dropping right to the back. From there, his race became an hour of damage limitation and patient chasing.
Up front, Spanish champion Felipe Orts was the first to cash in, grabbing the early bonus seconds at the end of lap one and setting the tempo through the next circuits. The race really came alive on lap four, when Mason surged to the front and began using his mud skills to stretch the bunch. Only Nys could truly live with the British champion, first closing gaps, then matching him on the off cambers and in the rutted corners as the rest began to drift backwards.
What followed was five laps of sustained, almost old-fashioned cross racing. Nys made small mistakes, dabbing a foot here or sliding wide there, and several times had to close one or two bike lengths to Mason. The Scot was riding with the confidence of a man who had been technically excellent all week, and for a while it looked as if he was the one dictating the story.
Nys knew he could not afford to let the race come down to a risky dive into the final slippery corner. “I was not so confident in my sprint because of that last turn, it was quite slick,” he explained afterwards. “I did not want to take any risks, it felt a bit dangerous.”
So instead of waiting, he used the pits and bike choice to swing the momentum. After gesturing to his mechanics, he took a fresh bike, reset and began to spend more time on the front, forcing Mason to respond rather than choose his own lines. With three laps to go, the two champions were locked in, trading turns and testing each other on every technical feature.
The decisive phase came on the final circuit. A small bobble from Nys opened a door, and Mason tried to barge through it, going shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to slip by, but the Belgian shut down the move and kept the lead into the pits. Both riders swapped to clean bikes one last time, and as they dropped back into the mud, it was Nys who seized the initiative.
He dived inside through a tight, greasy corner, opened a couple of lengths and then stacked three hard accelerations on top of each other. On a course that punished any attempt to ride back onto a wheel, that was enough. Mason, who had spent half the race on the offensive, finally cracked by a handful of seconds and had to settle for second.
For Nys, the victory was as much about confirmation as it was about points or seconds. “It was really important to win again here,” he said. “In my first race on the Koppenberg I started super well, but after that – Merksplas and last week – things were always decent without ever matching that same feeling. Winning today is good for the confidence.”
Behind them, the battle for third was almost as impressive in its own way. From that early crash and pit stop, Nieuwenhuis spent five laps simply riding back through the field, eventually reaching the tail of the lead group and then edging clear with Lars van der Haar. In the closing laps, he had just enough left to claim the final podium step, preserving a strong position in the overall classification after such a difficult start.
2025 X2O Trofee Flandriencross Hamme Men result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
