Two young riders, Dutch champion Tibor del Grosso and Belgian champion Thibau Nys, slugged it out under the lights in Tuesday’s special night race round of the 2025-2026 Superprestige series in Diegem, Belgium. Del Grosso was amazed to see his late-race mistake superceded by an even more consequential Nys error and claimed his second consecutive Superprestige victory. Niels Vandeputte leads the series by two points over Michael Vanthourenhout. Tyler Clark was top Canadian in 47th.

Earlier in the day in the Junior men’s race, Canada’s Emilien Belzile came sixth, Evan Moore placed 11th and Sagan Goertz made 13th.

Preliminaries

Del Grosso took a huge win in the last round by outsprinting Wout van Aert. Vandeputte might not have won any rounds yet, but he still led double-round winner Vanthourenhout by one point and absent Merksplas victor Joris Neiuwenhuis by 18. We’ll see no more Laurens Sweeck this season—a crash while turning into the finishing straight yesterday in X2O Badkamers Loenhout caused an injury that requires surgery.

The Canadian contingent was Tyler Clark, Cody Scott, Rhett Bates, Liam Sargent, Remi Brisebois and Lucas Goertz.

A huge crash in midpack caused by Vanthourenhout unclipping delayed the man in second place. Nys didn’t have a great start either. Mees Hendrikx and Filipe Orts were the early leaders, del Grosso lurking nearby. Del Grosso powered through the sand pit in first place. The gap was nine seconds to Nys, Vandeputte, Hendrikx, Orts and a few others.

Vanthrouenhout had a lot of catching up to do all race long.

Nys’s work on Lap 2 dropped the other chasers but he was still eight seconds in arrears of the race leader after two circuits.

Del Grosso first over the illuminated fly over.

Nys had a lot of dirt ahead on which to reel in del Grosso. During Lap 3 of 9 Vandeputte pulled the next chase group. Nys yanked back two seconds. On Lap 4, Nys made contact, but del Grosso pried open more space in the sand. Vanthourenhout had clambered up to 15th.

Del Grosso checks Nys’s proximity after using the sand to open gap again.

Nys found del Grosso’s rear wheel again on Lap 5 and then went to the front. But del Grosso wanted to lead into the sand where once more he took the advantage. Again Nys brought him back before the line.

The story of this race was written in sand.

Lap 6 saw Nys insist on doing the driving. Suddenly the duo found chaser Joran Wyseure crowding them. Nys was first in and first out of the sand. Wyseure had advanced to within six seconds and arrived early in Lap 7.

Hendrikx appeared on the horizon. Nys took the new-formed trio into the sand, but del Grosso won the obstacle. Wyseure had to play catch up. Del Grosso kept on hitting tail whips to style under the stars.

Wyseure rejoined on the penultimate lap before grabbing the reins. A mistake from del Grosso on a short, steep climb made him dismount and delayed Wyseure. However, hard on the heels of this incident, Nys crashed in the sand, taking down Wyseure.

Nys got caught up in the rope and stakes.

When he heard the bell, del Grosso owned seven seconds. It was asking too much of the Belgian champion. In fact, Weseure dropped him into third.

Fifth-place Vandeputte only put a single point into a brave Vanthourenhout.

The next round is January 3 in Gullegem.

2025-2026 Superprestige, Round 6, Diegem
1) Tibor del Grosso (The Netherlands/Alpecin-Deceuninck) 1:00:19
2) Joran Wyseure (Belgium/Crelan-Corendon) +0:02
3) Thibau Nys (Belgium/Baloise Glowi Lions) +0:20
47) Tyler Clark
59) Cody Scott
61) Rhett Bates
63) Lucas Goertz
69) Remi Brisebois
72) Liam Sargent