SUPER8 Classic 2025

September 20, 2025 Today's SUPER8 Classic is a much different proposition than yesterday's sprint friendly Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen. Starting in the famous East Flandrian town of Brakel, the race heads East through Geraardsbergen then South into Wallonie where the character of the race is defined. Once in Court-Saint-Étienne, the route moves North to Wavre, across the Dyle River and onto a circuit with 75KM to go which contains the cobbled Moskesstraat, Holstheide, and Smeysberg which are used in De Brabantse Pijl. The three climbs all come within 7KM of each other on the 26KM loop. Each of the three bergs are taken on twice with the climb of the Ottenbourg sandwiched in the middle. The circuit ends with 33KM to go which gives the sprinters a chance to get back on. From 2KM to 1KM to go is very technical over the Kanaal Leuven-Dijle so any group coming to the finish will be fighting for position there. The final 800M on a dead straight road into Haacht, home of the World renowned Haacht Brewery. Not only did the cobbles give the feeling of a Spring classic, rain had fallen in the early morning making the roads damp for the roll out from Brakel. Surprisingly, only a break of four went with Julius Johansen of UAE-XRG, Artem Shmidt of Ineos, Filip Maciejuk of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, and Miká Heming of Tudor Pro Cycling. With 84KM to go, the race was still mostly together but Visma-Lease a Bike were riding very hard and had the gap to the leaders at 2 minutes 15 seconds. Within moments, the bunch split to pieces. The front of the peloton was reduced to 25 riders with Lotto being well represented and helping with the pace. Lotto and Visma-Lease a Bike continued to drive the group up and over the Chausée d'Ottenbourg towards the circuit which opened a substantial gap back to the peloton of over 40 seconds. The break arrived at the Moskesstraat at 67KM to go with 40 seconds on the first chase group containing many of the favorites with the main peloton at 1 minute 30 seconds. Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte of Visma-Lease a Bike and Jasper de Buyst of Lotto did a lot of the work to keep the first chase group rolling over the Holstheide and Smeysberg, all to keep their leaders, Matthew Brennan and Arnaud De Lie, fresh for the finale. In the break, Maciejuk had dropped out but the remaining three were riding strongly and still held 40 seconds over the chase with 40KM to go at the start of the Moskesstraat for the last time. The peloton was also getting organized and were another 40 seconds back but closing. De Buyst led into the Moskesstraat at full tilt and pulled off when he reached the cobbles. De Lie accelerated and had a gap of 10 seconds by the top. De Lie rode alone until he reached the top of the Holstheide when Van Aert brought the chase group across. Visma-Lease a Bike tried to get the rest of the group to rotate because Alpecin-Deceuninck were closing the gap and had Jasper Philipsen in tow. The original break was finally caught on the Smeysberg with 33KM to go and an attack immediately came from Alexandre Delettre of TotalEnergies. The Frenchman was brought back but with so few teammates left, the cohesion was not tight. In the peloton, Intermarché-Wanty pitched in with Alpecin-Deceuninck but both teams ran out of legs with 22KM to go and the whole group slowed down. Philipsen tried to come across himself but he was caught and the group stalled. Meanwhile in the favorites group, Riley Sheehan of Israel-Premier Tech and Michał Kwiatkowski of Ineos each tried to chip off the front but they were both caught. The increased speed needed to chase them down chase drew the gap to the peloton out to 50 seconds with 11KM to go and the winner would come from the front group. Van Aert returned to the front with de Buyst and the pair swapped off to keep the group together. With 2.5KM to go, riders were gearing up for the technical section and with extra nerves building, Davide Ballerini of XDS-Astana crossed his front wheel with another and crashed, taking him out of contention. Van Aert led the group through the twists with Tudor Pro Cycling behind with three riders including Matteo Trentin then De Lie and Brennan were sitting just behind. Heming was still there from the original break for Tudor Pro Cycling along with Marco Haller but they ran out of steam with 300M to go which forced Trentin to sprint a bit earlier than he may have wanted. De Lie and Brennan were caught on the wrong side of the road but De Lie swung across to get into the slipstream as best he could and Brennan followed. De Lie took a moments breath then started his full sprint. He got to the front, passed Trentin and Jordi Meeus of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe, and looked to have a commanding lead but Brennan made a burst right before the line and drew level with De Lie. De Lie raised his arms and did indeed get the victory but he seemed to be more sure than what was warranted given how close Brennan came. Meeus did enough for third which was a great result because we was about the only pure sprinter to make it to the finish in the front group.