A busy weekend of cyclo-cross racing in Belgium for Toon Arts (Telenet Baloise Lions) and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (Corendon-Circus) after round 5 in Zonhoven on Sunday, They managed to extend their overall lead (albeit by a small margin) in the Super Prestige Series, while Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) returned to winning ways at the Ethias Cross in Essen on Saturday.

Alvarado lost the win to Annemarie Worst in 777 and had to settle for second place, but widened her three-point lead over Worst's teammate Yara Kastelin to four points, while world champion Sanne Canto (IKO-Crelan) remained in third in sixth place.

Aerts won the elite men's race ahead of the Pauwels-Sausen-Bingor pair of Laurence Sweck and Eli Iserbito. Sweck was unlucky to fall on the last lap while challenging the Belgian champion Aerts for the win.

The result gave Aerts a one-point lead over Sweck. Aerts' teammate Quinten Hermans of the Terrenette Baloise Lions is another four points back in third place.

While many big names took part in the Etihad Cross in Essen on Saturday, many were rested ahead of Sunday's Superprestige round, with the sport's biggest star, Mathieu van der Pol, in Spain Mathieu Van Der Pol, the sport's biggest star, was completely unavailable all weekend as he attended the Corendon Circus Team training camp in Spain.

The returning Marianne Vos easily overtook Hungarian champion Blanka Kata Vas (Doltcini-NM Transport) and British rider Anna Kay (Experza Pro CX) to win the women's race in Essen, Deceuninck-QuickStep's Zdenek Stybar also made a solid return to the cyclocross world by finishing 12th in the men's event, which was won by Quinten Hermans.

Stybar finished 19th at the Superprestige in Zonhoven the following day, but admitted to Het Laatste Nieuws before the race weekend that he still needed to work a little harder to be truly competitive.

"The conditions are not good," he said. On the other hand, we started training a little earlier than usual, but that wasn't training specifically for the intensity of the crosses."

Stybar will compete in his next 'cross at the Worsland Cross in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, on December 21, prior to the first World Cup of the 2019/20 season in Heusden-Zolder on December 26.