In the final Superprestige race of the season in Middelkerke, Belgium three riders won on the bike that bears the race’s name in its honour. Mathieu van der Poel (BKCP-Corendon), Sanne Cant and Jens Dekker (both Enertherm-BKCP) won in a superior way on their STEVENS Super Prestige Disc.

Sanne Cant and Jens Dekker of Enertherm-BKCP confirmed their overall lead in the series, and Mathieu van der Poel demonstrated with his third consecutive win that he could have won overall if he hadn’t been injured at the beginning of the season. Daan Hoeyberghs, van der Poel’s team mate at BKCP-Corendon  celebrated his third place in the overall classification. 

Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert soon joined Michael Vanthourenhout in his attack. Van Aert dropped back early after he suffered a broken rear mech and found himself in place 30 after a bike change while in the meantime Mathieu van der Poel had begun his solo break-away. He raced to an undisputed victory 30 seconds before Tom Meeusen.

”I had not planned to ride alone at the front for that long”, Mathieu said. ”But on such a technical course it was not that decisive.” Despite this ’great victory’ the Dutch National Champion was not happy with his performance due to ”too many mistakes”. Yet he was quite pleased with his overall season: ”I entered the season fairly late but all the races I rode except the World Championship race went quite well.”

In the series‘ final overall classification van der Poel ranks 8th, one place behind Laurens Sweeck of team ERA-Murprotec, who in his first season in the Elite category finished in the top ten in almost every race. Yet, in Middelkerke he had to drop out due to a mechanical right after the start.

Wout van Aert secured overall victory in the Super Prestige Series by an impressive chase of Sven Nys, who could have taken the overall away from him. The overall winner and freshly crowned World Champion also won the head-to-head race against veteran Nys.
 
Series Hattrick for Sanne Cant
On such a slippery and technical course it was all about finding a compromise between high speed and secure handling without making mistakes, Sanne Cant said after her undisputed victory in front of Sophie de Boer and Nikki Harris. It was the 6th win in 8 races for the European and Belgian National Champion, which made the overall victory a logical consequence.

By also winning the World Cup and the bpost bank Trophy Sanne Cant wins her third race series. She concludes: ”I only failed to win the World Championships, but I will keep on trying. Hopefully, this summer I will have a good preparation for the next season, and then, we will see.”

In a similar fashion Jens Dekker had dominated the Super Prestige Series throughout the whole 2015/16 season. In Middelkerke he won his 5th of 8 races. His team mate and main competitor in the series, Jappe Jaspers, maybe would have been able to take over the lead from him in the final race but he had to stay out due to a viral infection. Toon Vandenbosch of youth team Enertherm-BKCP rode to third place which meant 8th place for him in the final overall rankings.

Since he crashed in the World Championships Daan Hoeyberghs is recovering from his injuries so he wasn’t able to finish better than 20th place. His third place overall and his second places in the bpost bank Trophy yet give proof and the European Championships respectively give proof of his otherwise outstanding season.