Sanne Cant can call herself European Cross Champion for another year. In the Elite women's race the 26 year old Belgian defended her title at the European Cross Championship in Huijbergen on STEVENS Super Prestige. Her team-mate at BKCP-Enertherm, Jens Dekker, had won the gold medal in the junior race before.

Daan Hoeyberghs of BKCP-Corendon and Jessica Lambracht of the Hamburg-based STEVENS Racing Team made this successful day of riders on STEVENS Super Prestige at the European Championship at the Dutch-Belgian border perfect. Hoeyberghs performed strongly in the U23 men's race from the beginning and rode from third to second place halfway through the race. Only Quinten Hermans was faster by 24 seconds, U23 World Champion Eli Iserbyt from Belgium scored third. His team-mate Adam Toupalik, Czech Champion, had some trouble keeping up with the leaders and finished sixth. The German Lukas Meiler of Team Vorarlberg, Felix Drumm and Yannick Gruner of STEVENS Racing Team finished 18th, 19th  und 24th.

Jessica Lambracht achieved the best result of the German starters with her fifth place in the U23 young race. After her start from second row, she first rode on eighth position, but could then gain some ground. After the race she said in an interview: "It just went all very well. I was really strong technically today. Most of the others can push harder, but I tried to compensate this by good riding skills. I am happy with my fifth place.“ Jessica Lambracht improved by four places compared to the previous year .

Femke van den Driessche (Belgium) won ahead of Maud Kaptheijns and Alice Maria Arzuffi (Italy). Jana Czeczinkarova scored fourth place ahead of Lambracht. With her 17 years of age – the femal juniors raced together with the U23 women – Lina Rausch of STEVENS Racing Team finished on a respectable 30th place considering most of the other riders being much older than her.

Before the race Cant said about tactical games: "I want to start well into the race, after that any other decision depends on the race's progress.“ Cant rode one round in the slipstream of Pavla Havlikova. She then took advantage of the power saved to create a gap between her and her competitors. Despite Cant's dominance the race stayed exciting as the old and new European Champion did not manage to set herself apart from the field for good and as behind her the places rotated frequently between Jolien Verschueren (Belgium), Nikki Harris (Great Britain) and Pavla Havlikova (Czech Republic) who finally finished in this order. Lisa Heckmann of STEVENS Racing Team finished 20th.

In the final men's Elite race Wout van Aert (Belgium) and Lars van der Haar (Netherlands) had been fighting an exciting duel until van Aert made a riding error which van der Haar took advantage of to set the decisive meters between himself and his competitor. Van der Haar won 19 seconds ahead of van Aert. Kenvo Pauweis finished third.

The best rider on STEVENS Super Prestige in the Elite race was Julien Taramarcaz from Switzerland on fifth place. His team-mate at ERA-Murprotec, Laurens Sweeck, finished seventh after being in the lead at the beginning of the race. Radomir Simunek finished ninth and Philipp Walsleben – the best German starter – scored eleventh place, which is a huge success considering his slight performance dip the previous week he spoke of in a pre-race interview. Ole Quast of STEVENS Racing Team was the second-best German racer (32nd), Sascha Weber and Marcel Meisen did not finish. "I reached my minimum goal“, Quast said after the race.

According to the female and male riders the course was either "tough“ (Cant) or „very, very tough“ (Lambracht). On the course covering roundabout 2.5 kilometers a sandy hill with three ascends and descends demanded a lot of strength, riding skills and concentration of the riders. After this a grass section which was rather sticky than fast was followed by two running sections in deep sands as a video of the course shows.

All Starters and results
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