Iserbyt Outduels Hermans to Win Superprestige Gieten – Report, Results

The Memorial Radomir Simunek in the Dutch town of Gieten, named after the Czech 1991 world champion Radomir Simunek Sr., kicked off a new Superprestige cyclocross season. Forest tracks, muddy run-ups and lots of sand are what awaited the riders today.

Gianni Vermeersch (Steylaerts-Betfirst) was the rider with a storming start in today’s Superprestige Gieten. A little gap opened up, but a flat tire soon thwarted his plans.

It was Laurens Sweeck (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal ) who ended the first lap in first position, with Joris Nieuwenhuis (Sunweb), Quinten Hermans (Telenet-Baloise Lions) and Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) on his wheel.

In the second lap, U23 world champion Tom Pidcock (TP racing) went down on the stairs. Meanwhile, Michael Vanthourenhout (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), Corné van Kessel (Telenet-Baloise Lions) and Daan Soete (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) joined the four leaders to make it a group of seven. At the end of the lap, the 7-headed leading group had an 8 seconds advantage on Jens Adams (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) and teammates Lars van der Haar and Toon Aerts (Telenet-Baloise Lions).

Aerts then started putting some serious effort into the chase to close the gap. Once they arrived at the stairs where Pidcock crashed, Aerts had made contact with the tail of the leading group, but in the front Soete and Iserbyt had started pushing. By the end of the 3rd lap, they had a 7-seconds advantage.

Aerts would have to start another hunt, but it was teammate Hermans who closed the gap. Once again, Iserbyt raised the pace. Hermans was the only one able to follow. By the end of the 4th lap, they had a 14 seconds advantage on the 7-headed chasing group.

As the race evolved, Iserbyt started putting more and more pressure. By the end of lap 6, Hermans had bent but not broken yet. Teammate Aerts had left the other chasers behind but had a 26 seconds arrear.

At the end of lap 7, Aerts had brought back his arrear to 10 seconds. It was the sign for Iserbyt to put the hammer down again. An error on a bridge, though, dropped his pace. For the first time, Aerts made contact with the front of the race halfway through lap 8. It was two Lions against Iserbyt now.

Quinten Hermans held the lead, as Aerts tried to move up to second towards the end of lap 9. Doing that his pace was a little too high going into one of the sandy corners on the track. Aerts’ bike gave up on him and there was a long way to run to the pit.

It was one against one with one lap left.

On one of the run-ups, Iserbyt accelerated. A gap opened and the gap kept opening as Iserbyt gave everything he had left. This time Hermans did break, and Iserbyt solidified his advantage.

The 21-year-old took his 4th win of the season. Hermans fought strong but he had to be happy with second.

“Before my decisive acceleration, I had already tried twice, but I made a stupid mistake every time. When Toon Aerts joined us, I knew I definitely had to try something in the last lap. Just when he shouted to Quinten (Hermans) that he could go, his chain dropped. That was a little bit of luck for me, but that’s part of it,” Iserbyt said. (translated, source: Sporza)

Van Kessel took third in a sprint with van der Haar. Ninth place went to Aerts who lost valuable points because of the mechanical troubles he faced in the second to last lap.

Full results are below. For more from Gieten, see our Women’s race report.

Elite Men Results: 2019 Superprestige Gieten

Rank	BIB	Last Name	First Name	Country	Result
1	9	ISERBYT	Eli	BEL	1:04:13
2	6	HERMANS	Quinten	BEL	1:04:30
3	7	VAN KESSEL	Corne	NED	1:04:56
4	5	VAN DER HAAR	Lars	NED	1:04:56
5	13	ADAMS	Jens	BEL	1:05:21
6	11	SOETE	Daan	BEL	1:05:30
7	8	VERMEERSCH	Gianni	BEL	1:05:34
8	4	SWEECK	Laurens	BEL	1:05:39
9	2	AERTS	Toon	BEL	1:05:53
10	14	NIEUWENHUIS	Joris	NED	1:06:09
11	3	VANTHOURENHOUT	Michael	BEL	1:06:43
12	17	AERTS	Thijs	BEL	1:06:55
13	41	PIDCOCK	Thomas	GBR	1:07:14
14	16	MEEUSEN	Tom	BEL	1:07:35
15	45	KIELICH	Timo	BEL	1:07:40
16	43	TURNER	Ben	GBR	1:07:41
17	35	WOUTERS	Sieben	NED	1:07:56
18	10	MEISEN	Marcel	GER	1:08:04
19	46	KAMP	Ryan	NED	1:08:21
20	56	CAMPS	Jelle	BEL	1:08:35
21	78	VLIEGEN	Pieter-Jan	BEL	1:08:59
22	58	VAN DIJKE	Tim	NED	1:09:08
23	36	AGTERBERG	Kyle	NED	1:09:10
24	26	MERLIER	Braam	BEL	1:09:43
25	25	GODRIE	Stan	NED	1:10:01
26	40	BEKAERT	Yentl	BEL	1:10:12
27	63	VAN DER HEIJDEN	Maik	NED	1:10:44
28	54	VAN DEN BROECK	Arno	BEL	LAP
29	76	VERBURG	Luke	NED	LAP
30	23	VAN DIJKE	Koen	NED	LAP
31	38	ARTZ	Bart	NED	LAP
32	19	BAKX	Kelvin	NED	LAP
33	50	RONHAAR	Pim	NED	LAP
34	31	GROENEN	Klaas	NED	LAP
35	68	MACLEOD	Callum	GBR	LAP
36	21	BOSMAN	Gert-Jan	NED	LAP
37	79	VREESWIJK	Noah	NED	LAP
38	70	MASON	Cameron	GBR	LAP
39	64	VAN HELVOIRT	Koen	NED	LAP
40	73	TÖMKE	Pascal	GER	LAP
41	74	UPTEGROVE	Pete	NED	LAP
42	27	MIJNTEN	Martin	NED	LAP
43	18	BARKHUIS	Bart	NED	LAP
44	69	MANSFIELD	Finn	GBR	LAP
45	22	CHRISTENSEN	Ryan	NZL	LAP
46	77	VESTER	Sebastian	NED	LAP
47	32	KUIPER	Jasir	NED	LAP
48	39	BAKKER	Niels	NED	LAP
49	55	BROUWER	Dennis	NED	LAP
50	65	KLEIN NIENHUIS	Bart	NED	LAP
51	34	REP	Sjoerd	NED	LAP
52	62	TEN HAVE	Bjorn	NED	LAP
53	29	FERNANDEZ RODRIGUEZ	Sergio Ivan	ESP	LAP
54	66	KUNKELER	Kees	NED	LAP
55	61	HARMS	Roy	NED	LAP
DNF	12	VAN DER POEL	David	NED
DNF	37	ARENSMAN	Thymen	NED
DNF	20	BOOM	Lars	NED
DNF	72	STRIK	Dylan	NED
DNF	48	TULETT	Ben	GBR
DNF	51	CORTJENS	Ryan	BEL
DNF	71	SEELEN	Jurgen	NED
DNF	53	BERENDSE	Brendan	NED
DNS	33	PAUL	Felix	GER
DNS	57	DAMIAANS	Wesley	NED
DNS	67	LINDNER	Tom	GER