With the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup freshly wrapped up, attention turns to the Rabobank UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. The 77th edition of the event will be the tenth held in the Netherlands, and the first in Hulst, a traditional venue of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup.
Seven titles of UCI World Champion will be awarded from Friday 30 January to Sunday 1 February. Proceedings will begin with the team relay on the opening day. Three rainbow jerseys will be sought on Saturday, with the Women Junior, Men Under 23, and Women Elite races. Finally, on Sunday, the Men Junior, Women Under 23, and Men Elite riders will battle for glory.
All riders will face the same 3.3km circuit, a renewed and expanded course featuring challenges well known to regulars in Hulst, along with new obstacles, and pontoons across the city moat. Will it be the perfect setting for Dutch stars to make history? Rivals from different backgrounds have been gearing up to oppose the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Lucinda Brand, winners of the Elite standings in the 2025-2026 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup.
Van der Poel’s legendary bid
Closing the action on Sunday, the Men Elite race may be the most anticipated from a historical point of view. At home, in front of the Dutch crowds, will Mathieu van der Poel separate himself from all his predecessors with an eighth Men Elite title? At the moment, the Dutchman is tied with Eric De Vlaeminck, who claimed seven rainbow jerseys in the Men Elite ranks (1966, and then from 1968 until 1973), while Marianne Vos already claimed eight in the Women Elite category (2006, 2009-2014, and 2022).
Off the back of a dominant season, Van der Poel is a hot favourite to take victory in Hulst. He’s won all 12 races he’s participated in this season, including eight UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup rounds. At the UCI Worlds, he claimed his first Men Elite crown in 2015, and has won every title since 2019 except for 2022.
Second to Van der Poel in the 2025-2026 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup rankings, and bronze medallist last year in Liévin (France), Belgium’s Thibau Nys is among the main challengers to the Dutchman. Belgians have won 30 Men Elite titles at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships, from De Vlaeminck’s first to Wout van Aert’s last (2018). In Hulst, they’ll be missing the latter, who suffered a right ankle injury at the beginning of January, but talents such as Niels Vandeputte, Toon Aerts, and Michael Vanthourenhout will accompany Nys.
Van der Poel will be joined by another exciting Dutch talent, Tibor Del Grosso. The two-time Men Under 23 UCI World Champion (2024 and 2025) has proven his talent among the Men Elite at this year’s UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup with top-three finishes in five of the last six rounds. Other UCI World Cup podium finishers including Great Britain’s Cameron Mason (3rd in Flamanville, France) and Spain’s Felipe Orts (3rd at home in Benidorm) dream of repeating such achievements in Hulst.
Brand against the world
A Dutch icon has also ruled this season in the Women Elite competition: Lucinda Brand featured on most podiums, and more often than not on the highest step. She suffered calf pain in the final weekend of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup, but it didn’t prevent her from taking her fourth overall victory, before setting her sights on a potential second rainbow jersey. Brand has featured on the podium of every edition of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships since taking bronze in 2018, but so far she has only won once, in 2021. She finished second on four occasions (2019, 2022, 2024, and 2025).
Many rivals aim to shake Brand’s dominance in Hulst, in the absence of triple and reigning UCI World Champion Fem van Empel, who has stepped away from competition. On the last two occasions, their compatriot Puck Pieterse was 3rd, after taking the silver medal in 2023. Will she rise to victory this year? She just ruled the closing weekend of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup, with back-to-back victories in Maasmechelen (Belgium) and Hoogerheide (the Netherlands).
The last round showed the geographical diversity of today’s talent with seven nations featuring in the top ten. In Pieterse’s wake, Czechia’s Kristýna Zemanová led the way ahead of France’s Amandine Fouquenet, Great Britain’s Zoe Bäckstedt… The latter will vie for the Women Elite title for the first time, after three triumphs in the Junior (2022) and Under 23 (2024, 2025) ranks, as well as a gold medal in last year’s team relay.
The likes of France’s Célia Gery, a rising force who already claimed the rainbow jersey as a Junior (2024), and the Netherlands’ Leonie Bentveld, will aim to succeed Bäckstedt in the Women Under 23 ranks. Soren Bruyère-Joumard, Gery’s compatriot, will try to repeat his Men Junior title after Italy’s Patrik Pezzo Rosola narrowly edged him in this season’s UCI World Cup standings. French and Italian rising stars also battled at the top of the Women Junior rankings of the 2025-2026 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup, with France’s Lise Revol (the defending UCI World Champion in the category) getting the better of Giorgia Pellizotti. In the meantime, the Netherlands’ David Haverdings dominated the Men Under 23 field ahead of another French youngster, Aubin Sparfel, winner of the last round, in Hoogerheide.