Binche - Chimay - Binche / Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke 2025

October 7, 2025 The final Belgian road race of 2025 has arrived with the 38th edition of Binche-Chimay-Binche/Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke. As the name suggests, the race starts and finishes in Binche after an excursion South to Chimay, home of the famous eponymously named beer, in the far Southwestern corner of the country. The undulating route down and back is only about 110KM of the 203KM race however. The remaining distance comes from circuits around Binche, five in total, each one 16KM in length. From the finish line, the road rises for about 2KM at 2% but there are short pitches of 6% within. The course descends through Vellereille-les-Brayeux and Vaudrez before arriving back in Binche for a likely reduced bunch sprint. As has become tradition, the peloton gave a farewell to Adrien Petit as the Frenchman is retiring at the end of the race after a long career. The start of the race was fast and ten riders got away but they never got much time and were eventually brought back. As the riders entered the circuit with 78KM to go, Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto, Niklas Behrens of Visma-Lease a Bike, Jenthe Biermans of Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Joppe Heremans of VolkerWessels, and Tom Van Asbroeck of Israel-Premier Tech had formed a new front group but the race was fluid as UAE-XRG, Uno-X Mobility, and Picnic-PostNL were attacking just 30 seconds behind. The Veistroffer group was caught with 74KM to go and the attacking continued. Through the finish line at 63KM to go, Mikkel Bjerg of UAE-XRG got a gap with Pierre Thierry of Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Dylan Vandenstorme of Flanders Baloise. Meanwhile at the back, the bunch had split and one of the pre-race favorites, Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Deceuninck, was in the second peloton and drifting to over 1 minute back. When the leaders hit the finish line with 48KM and 3 laps to go, they had 30 seconds on the bunch which had calmed down and formed a more controlled chase. Unfortunately for the lead group, Vandenstorme wasn't able to keep the pace on the dragging road after the finish which left just Bjerg and Thierry to fend off the peloton. Israel-Premier Tech took charge of the chase but riders weren't waiting around for a sprint. Tim van Dijke of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Andreas Stokbro of Unibet-Tietema Rockets tried to bridge up but they didn't have the legs were reeled back in with 38KM to go. Visma-Lease a Bike put Victor Campenaerts on the front and through the finish line for the penultimate time, Bjerg and Thierry's lead was down to 17 seconds. As in previous laps, the hill coming out of Binche was hard to control and attacks went once again. Unibet-Tietema Rockets, Lidl-Trek , and Uno-X Mobility all got involved but Visma-Lease a Bike regained control. By the time they came around for one lap to go, the fighting duo of Bjerg and Thierry had just 10 seconds. Stokbro went for a second time on the climb coming out of Binche as Israel-Premier Tech were leading and hoping for a sprint with Corbin Strong. Stokbro was quickly up to the leaders but Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe added a man to the chase and the race was finally brought back with 10.5KM to go. Teams got organized for the sprint with Israel-Premier Tech leading with Visma-Lease a Bike, Groupama-FDJ, and Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe all working to hold their position near the front. Groupama-FDJ were perfectly positioned alongside Intermarché-Wanty through 1KM to go. Clément Russo did a fantastic lead out for Paul Penhoët of the French squad, stringing out the peloton up the final few hundred meters which dissolved other lead out trains. When Russo pulled off with 450M to go, the front slowed down slightly and others behind came up with speed. Jordi Meeus of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe launched his sprint with 225M to go with Nils Eekhoff of Picnic-PostNL on his wheel. Meeus held such a speed that Eekhoff was never able to get out of the slipstream and the Belgian crossed the line in victory as the famous voice of Daniel Mangeas called him home over the PA system. Eekhoff took second on the day with Christophe Laporte of Visma-Lease a Bike returning to form to take the final podium spot.