The 2026 European Cyclocross Championships land in Zeddam this weekend, and for once the two biggest names in the sport are not the headline. With Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert still weeks away from their winter returns, Belgium’s Thibau Nys rolls into the Dutch Achterhoek as the clear favourite for the continental title — and he knows exactly how heavy that tag can be.
What’s Happening in Zeddam
The UEC European Cyclocross Championships run across Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November at Zeddam, a village in the eastern Netherlands. The elite women race on Saturday afternoon (3:00pm local / CET), with the elite men closing the championships on Sunday at the same time — 3:00pm CET, or 2:00pm GMT. Junior and under-21 races for both sexes fill out the rest of the two-day programme.
The course is a nod to history: it largely retraces the circuit that hosted the 2006 World Championships, won two decades ago by Erwin Vervecken and Marianne Vos. Vervecken himself helped design the 2026 layout, and the venue’s famous steps have been widened to three metres to meet current UCI requirements. “The course will be a mix of different sections, with elevation changes, flat meadows, and some technical sections,” Vervecken said. “Often a course is specifically a sand or mud course, but this one will have it all.” With a cold, dry forecast, the ground is expected to be hard and fast — a climb-heavy circuit that should still “take its toll toward the end.” The elite races are being shown live on TNT Sports in the UK and on FloSports and HBO Max in North America.
The Men’s Race: Nys Is the Marked Man
At 23, Thibau Nys is the rider everyone will be watching. He warmed up by taking the Koppenbergcross on 1 November, edging Michael Vanthourenhout on the final lap despite crashing twice — a win built on class rather than cyclocross sharpness. Nys came into the winter straight off a long road season, including a Grand Tour: he lined up at the Vuelta a España before switching back to the knobbly tyres. “I don’t want to make it sound like I only trained for three weeks and then showed up here,” he said of his short preparation. He was candid about the risk, too: “That might come back to haunt me in the upcoming races, but I hope I can still improve from here.”
There is an extra edge for Nys this time. He has suggested that, in the ideal scenario, this could be the last time he wears the Belgian national jersey before swapping it for the European champion’s colours. His biggest domestic rival, Michael Vanthourenhout — European champion in 2022 and 2023 — is reliably strong at this time of year and opened his season by winning the first Superprestige in Overijse. The pair are the clear co-favourites.
The home crowd will pin its hopes on Joris Nieuwenhuis, who rides in his own region and knows the Zeddam circuit better than almost anyone. Dark horses include Dutchman Pim Ronhaar and Belgians Niels Vandeputte and Joran Wyseure, the last of whom won in Heerde before an illness scare. One notable absentee is defending champion Toon Aerts, ruled out by a lingering knee injury, while Tom Pidcock — sharp on the road all autumn, as his runner-up ride at the Giro dell’Emilia showed — has opted out of the Europeans. Van der Poel’s participation remains a question mark amid impending fatherhood, and neither he nor Van Aert has built their early winter around Zeddam, leaving the title genuinely open.
The Women’s Race: A Dutch Fortress Under Pressure
Dutch women have won the last seven European titles, and Lucinda Brand arrives as the clear favourite after her own victory at the Koppenbergcross. “Ever since I heard that the European Championships are being held in Zeddam, I’ve been really looking forward to it,” Brand said of racing on home soil. Her biggest threat may not be Dutch at all: Marie Schreiber of Luxembourg has been the season’s standout challenger and is billed as Brand’s number-one rival.
Behind them the Dutch depth is formidable. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, a former European champion, and the returning Fem van Empel — winner of three straight titles from 2022 to 2024 — headline a group of dark horses that also includes France’s Amandine Fouquenet and Italy’s Sara Casasola, who was second on the Koppenberg. Defending champion Inge van der Heijden, who sprang a surprise as an underdog last year, cannot be discounted when the favourites start marking each other.
Why It Matters
The Europeans are the first championship of the cyclocross winter and the season’s earliest hint of who is flying. The continental jersey is a prize in itself, but it also sets the tone before the UCI World Cup opens in Ostrava on 27 November and the World Championships arrive in Ostend at the end of January. For Nys, a title would be both a career milestone and, potentially, a symbolic last ride in Belgian red before trading it for European blue. More broadly, the start list is a snapshot of a discipline in transition: with Van der Poel and Van Aert steadily scaling back their cyclocross schedules, riders like Nys, Vanthourenhout, Brand and Schreiber are the names shaping the sport’s next era.
What This Means for You
Even if you never pin a number on, a championship weekend like this is a free master-class for your own winter riding. Watch how the elites manage a hard, fast course: on frozen or dry ground, the best runners drop their tyre pressure to claw back grip, and getting that balance right matters just as much on your local trails. If you want to dial it in on your own bike, our guide to setting up tubeless tyres walks through the pressures and sealant that make low-pressure running possible without burping a tyre.
Zeddam is also a reminder of how off-road racing keeps blurring its own lines. If you have ever wondered where cyclocross ends and gravel begins — and whether one bike can do both — our explainer on cyclocross vs gravel bikes breaks down the geometry, tyre clearance and gearing differences. And with the UCI Gravel World Championships having just headed to Australia, there has never been more choice for riders who want to take drop bars off the tarmac this winter.
There is a wider story on the start line, too. Cyclocross is quietly going global: Dutch rider Manon Bakker arrives in Zeddam having already won six races on the booming American circuit this season, a reminder that the discipline is no longer confined to the muddy heartlands of Belgium and the Netherlands. A strong European Championships from an international rider — Luxembourg’s Schreiber, Spain’s past podium finisher Felipe Orts or Britain’s Cameron Mason among the men — would be another sign that the sport’s traditional borders are loosening.
Key Takeaways
- The 2026 European Cyclocross Championships run 7–8 November in Zeddam, Netherlands, on a course based on the 2006 Worlds circuit.
- Thibau Nys is the men’s favourite despite a short cyclocross build-up; Michael Vanthourenhout is his main rival, and defending champion Toon Aerts is out injured.
- Lucinda Brand leads the women’s race, with Luxembourg’s Marie Schreiber as her biggest challenger; Dutch riders have won the last seven titles.
- Van der Poel and Van Aert are not built around the Europeans, making the title unusually open.
- The result sets the tone before the World Cup opener in Ostrava (27 Nov) and the Worlds in Ostend in late January.
