Mol rarely needs much help to feel brutal. Add falling snow to the Zilvermeer sand, and the Exact Cross becomes a race of traction, visibility, and nerve – the sort of conditions where the “best line” can disappear within a lap. On Friday 2 January 2026, the women’s and men’s races were both shaped by the same theme: the weather kept tightening the margins, and the riders who could adapt quickest were the ones who decided the day.
In the women’s race, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado finally got her season up and running with a measured, late surge that she backed up all the way to the line for her first win of 2025-26. In the men’s event, Mathieu van der Poel handled his own crash, then saw his duel with Wout van Aert end abruptly when the Belgian went down and abandoned, leaving Van der Poel to finish the job alone.
Men’s race: Van der Poel stays upright long enough, then watches the duel end in an instant
Even before the decisive incidents, this was a race that never looked settled. The snow came and went, then returned harder, softening the sand, slicking the corners, and making the fast sections feel like they were balanced on a knife edge.
From the opening lap, the front of the race was already taking shape: Van der Poel and Van Aert were quickly at the sharp end alongside riders like Toon Aerts and Felipe Orts. Van Aert, in particular, looked determined to make it a proper fight, repeatedly pushing the pace and trying to force choices in the sand and through the corners.
Van der Poel’s first major advantage came when he accelerated on the third lap of nine, opening a gap that looked significant given how hard it was to hold speed through the snowy slop. But Mol did not allow anyone to relax. On lap four, Van der Poel slid out and crashed. He was up quickly, yet the impact was obvious: cold hands, reduced feel, and a chunk of time suddenly gone. Van Aert used that moment exactly as you would expect, clawing his way back onto the world champion’s wheel as they began lap five.
Photo Credit: GettyFor two laps, the race became what everyone wanted – and what the conditions almost seemed designed to punish: a head-to-head duel in worsening snow. Van Aert took turns pressing on at the front, trying to stress Van der Poel’s composure and balance, while Van der Poel responded by keeping the effort just high enough to remove any sense of comfort.
The decisive moment arrived late, not with a single explosive attack, but with a sudden shift in control. Van der Poel moved back to the front at the start of lap seven. Moments later, a wobble and a tightening corner forced Van Aert to brake on the slippery surface. He lost the bike and crashed hard, striking his knee and leaving blood visible as he tried to regroup.
That was the end of the battle. Van Aert pulled into the pits and abandoned, the frustration of another disrupted race written all over the moment. His sports director Jan Boven summed up the immediate concern afterwards: “Wout is experiencing pain in his ankle. We will conduct further examinations before drawing any conclusions.”
With the duel gone, Van der Poel did what he so often does when the race is offered to him: he rode the remaining laps with control, avoided the worst of the risk, and turned a chaotic afternoon into another solo win.
Exact Cross Mol 2026 Men result
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Women’s race: Alvarado times it right and finally gets her season moving
The women’s race had a very different feel at the start – less about a single, inevitable favourite, and more about who could cope best with sand that was changing shape as the snow began to settle.
Alvarado arrived in Mol carrying the context of a disrupted winter, and the early part of her race reflected that. She did not look instantly comfortable, and for a while she rode with restraint rather than aggression, feeling her way through the sand before committing fully. Up front, Julie Brouwers impressed again by riding with authority early, while a small lead group began to form and reform as the pace fluctuated.
Once Alvarado did begin to assert herself, the race narrowed quickly. After an opening phase where the front contained multiple contenders – including Brouwers, Manon Bakker, Fleur Moors and Kristýna Zemanová – Alvarado’s pressure reduced the contest to the riders who could repeatedly survive the sand at speed.
Bakker was the rider who held on longest, even with an energy-sapping mechanical issue early on that forced her into chase mode. The longer the race went, the more that early cost seemed to matter, because Mol asks you to pay for every acceleration twice: once when you make it, and again when you try to recover in the sand.
Alvarado waited until the moment felt right, then made it stick. Around the end of lap four, she hit the gas, scorched clear, and immediately began building a gap that was small but meaningful in worsening visibility. The snow intensified in the final two laps, covering the lines and turning the sand sections into guesswork. That should have made a late attack harder to defend – but Alvarado rode two tidy, composed laps, keeping her speed and rhythm when others were fighting the surface.
She won by 12 seconds, with Bakker digging deep to secure second and Brouwers holding on for a deserved third after another front-foot performance.
Afterwards, Alvarado’s relief came through clearly.
“I think it’s a very nice one… with my late-season start and then all the injuries and bad luck I had so far, but I was riding today with a good feeling and no back issues,” she said, before admitting the snowfall caught her out: “I had actually rain expected instead of snow… it made it also hard seeing the lines in the sand.”
It was not just a win. It looked like a reset – proof that the feeling is coming back, and that her season might still have a second half worth watching.
Exact Cross Mol 2026 Women result
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