Laurens Sweeck can call himself the winner of the Strawberry Cross in the Telenet Superprestige for a year. The Belgian hid for almost the entire race, but accelerated in the final lap to a second consecutive victory in the Superprestige. Toon Aerts and Lars van der Haar came second and third respectively.
Last year Joris Nieuwenhuis won in Merksplas. However, the Dutchman has not yet played this season and so we would certainly get a new winner today. It was Niels Vandeputte, leader in the rankings prior to the heat, who was the first to enter the field. He got Michael Vanthourenhout, Eli Iserbyt and Laurens Sweeck in the wheel. After the first lap, the foursome built up a negligible lead of six seconds over newly crowned European champion Thibau Nys and the chasing group.
At the start of the third round, Nys and co. the connection and everything had to be done again. From then on it was a game of taking turns drawing the head. First Nys was allowed to try to open a gap, not much later it was up to the Spaniard Felipe Orts to set the course. Together with Vanthourenhout and Toon Aerts, they formed a small gap on the pursuers halfway through the stage. Not much later, that lead was also canceled out and so we had to wait for the first explosion in Merksplas.
That ultimate explosion only came at the very end. In the last lap and just before the sand strip, Laurens Sweeck placed a blistering attack and the cyclo-cross rider was able to triumph in the Superprestige for the second time in a row. Toon Aerts and Lars van der Haar tried to win the race with a final attempt, but they had to make do with second and third place respectively. The latter was left ahead by teammate Thibau Nys and thus also takes the lead in the rankings.
Top 5
1. Laurens Sweeck (BEL)
2. Toon Aerts (BEL)
3. Lars Van der Haar (NED)
4. Thibau Nys (BEL)
5. Michael Vanthourenhout (BEL)
