Junior cyclo-cross world champion Thibau Nys dominated a trio of older and more experienced cyclo-cross stars, including Mathieu van der Poel, Eli Iserbyt, and Laurens Sweeck, at the Battle of Balenberg cyclo-cross "triathlon" in Baal, Belgium last week. dominated the older and more experienced cyclo-cross stars over three events, including.

Nys, 17, is the son of two-time elite cyclo-cross world champion and six-time World Cup winner Sven Nys, a rider on his father's Telenet Baloise Lions team feeder team, the AA Drink Jongeren Team

The Battle of Balenberg (Slag om Balenberg) took place last Monday, but was broadcast only on the weekend by Sporza) at the Sven Nys Cycling Center in Barre, located on the Balenberg climb.

In the women's race, 2019/20 UCI World Cup winner Annemarie Worst (777) took the overall win after winning two of the three events (both time trials), with junior world champion Shirin van Unrooy winning in the sand.

The second event involved riders riding as far as possible uphill on a sand section. Each rider was given two chances, and in the men's event, Nys, who had already set the fastest time in the opening event, timed over a technical 400m course, reached the furthest in his two attempts. Pauwels Sauzen Bingor's Sweck was second behind Nys in both events.

Race leader Nys started from last place in the third and final event, a 1.68 km time trial. Van der Pol (Alpecin Phoenix) set the fastest time by more than a second over Sweek, but Nys beat Van der Pol's time by more than two seconds to clinch the overall title.

"It's true that this is my training track. I was basically born here and I know the surface perfectly. But in the final test I was perfect: I controlled the bike and did perfect laps without any mistakes. But I'm surprised that no one could do better.

But he did not expect to be the rider to challenge the dominance of three-time elite world champion Van der Pol anytime soon.

According to Het Nieuwsblad, "Cyclocross races take an hour. You can't draw any conclusions from this." I have to get a bigger engine to compete with Mathieu and the other riders. But I am happy to have won here. I didn't know this was possible."