Inge van der Heijden led from start to finish to claim the elite women’s title at the UEC European Cyclocross Championships, leading a Dutch sweep in Middelkerke, Belgium, on Saturday.
Known as a sand specialist, the 24-year-old Van der Heijden took the front immediately at the riders tackled the first sand section and quickly established a gap that she was able to hold to win the first elite women’s title in her career.
Behind her, team tactics came into play as a three-rider chase group formed with compatriots Lucinda Brand, Aniek van Alphen and Sara Casasola (Italy). After the Dutch team’s tactics were questioned at the 2025 UCI Gravel World Championships, neither Brand nor Van Alphen seemed willing to go all in to chase down their teammate.
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“I knew it was really important to have a good start with directly the steep upper and I went really fast to the first corner, was the first at the top, and did my own pace. The first lap was really, really hard to make the gap, and I didn’t expect to hold it to the finish line, but I’m really happy to make it,” Van der Heijden said.
“Hopefully, I can continue like this. The first few races [in the season] were good, but the last few were still good, but not… Yeah, I missed out the podium a few times, so I knew this lap with the sand pits, it’s something for me, but yeah, I really cannot believe it that I’m the European champion.”
Winning the elite title meant “a lot” for Van der Heijden, who had claimed the U23 title at the 2019 Cyclocross World Championships.
“So I have won World title in the 23, but now this was on goal for me to be on the podium,” she said, “and now I have the jersey, so I’m really happy.”
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UEC European Cyclocross Championships elite women’s podium (l-r): second-place Lucinda Brand, winner Inge van der Heijden and third place Aniek van Alphen – all from the Netherlands (Image credit: Getty Images)How it unfolded
A total of 23 riders took the start in Middelkerke, the second time the UEC European Cyclocross Championships were held in Belgium. The U23 women will race their own event on Sunday. The course on and around the military domain of Lombardsijde is made up exclusively of natural elements. No stairs, beams or bridges, just a lot of sand and dunes.
Inge van der Heijden (Netherlands) took the holeshot and immediately applied pressure on the first sandy section and quickly established a gap at the front, while pre-race favourite Lucinda Brand (Netherlands) had a slow start, pushing her back into the middle of the field.
Using her sand skills, Van der Heijden had 21 seconds on a group of four chasers at the end of the first lap out of six. The chase group consisted of Sara Casasola (Italy) and a Dutch trio of Brand, Aniek van Alphen and Manon Bakker, with Blanka Vas (Hungary) and Amandine Fouquenet (France), a further eight and 14 seconds back respectively. Bakker quickly lost touch with the chase group, leaving the trio to continue for the rest of the race.
It became obvious that Brand and Van Alphen were trying to get Casasola to do the work in the chase group, not wanting to raise more eyebrows following the Dutch team tactics at the Gravel World Championships back in October, where they chased down their own teammates. Brand waved at Casasola to take the front on the straightaway finish at the end of the second lap.
Over the next three laps, Brand and Casasola launched several attacks, but each was quickly neutralised as the riders tackled the sandy sections, including the beach, choosing different lines with the slowly receding tide. At the end of the fourth lap, Brand even chose to ride through the water.
With two laps to go, Van der Heijden had a solid gap of 44 seconds to the trio with Fouquenet at 1:29 and Hélène Clauzel (France) at 1:55. At this point, the chase trio were now battling for the remaining podium spots, but disaster struck for Casasola as they raced into the beach section. Her wheels got sideways into a rut, and she went down in a high-speed crash, causing her to lose time, time that she would never regain.
Van Alphen put in an attack and managed to get a gap slightly, but Brand closed it down and pulled away to take second place.
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