Superprestige Round 11 - Cat. 1Heerlen, Netherlands, February 13, 2000The Rabobank team, with World Champion Groenendaal, Adrie van der Poel and Belgian champion Sven Nijs took off early on the hilly and muddy track in Heerlen for the final Superprestige race of the cyclocross season. Janssens, De Clercq, Pontoni, Berden and van Santvliet formed the chasing group. It took the World Champion three laps to get off on his own, and then Pontoni had joined Groenendaal's two team mates, twenty seconds behind, a gap that grew to forty at the finish where Pontoni came in alone. Van der Poel was third, Nijs fourth and de Clercq fith, which means that he was defeated by the Dutch veteran by three points in the overall standings. However, despite finishing three places behind Groenendaal, Sven Nijs had enough of a lead to win the overall classification of the Superprestige series. With just two races left, Nijs can breathe a sigh of relief that he has won the two major points classifications of the cyclocross season, although since the World Championships, he has not been in top form.
Results: 1 Richard Groenendaal (Ned) 59.15 2 Daniele Pontoni (Ita) 0.24 3 Adrie van der Poel (Ned) 1.02 4 Sven Nijs (Bel) 1.38 5 Mario de Clercq (Bel) 2.25 6 Ben Berden (Bel) 2.35 7 Gerben de Knegt (Ned) 2.45 8 Marc Janssens (Bel) 3.58 9 Peter van Santvliet (Bel) 4.13 10 Tom Vannoppen (Bel) 4.57 Final overall standings: 1 Sven Nijs (Bel) 284 pts 2 Richard Groenendaal (Ned) 278 3 Adri van der Poel (Ned) 207 4 Mario de Clercq (Bel) 204 5 Bart Wellens (Bel) 156 6 Peter van Santvliet (Be 151 7 Erwin Vervecken (Bel) 118 8 Tom Van Noppen (Bel) 113 9 Daniele Pontoni (Ita) 109 10 Ben Berden (Bel) 97 11 Gerben de Knegt (Ned) 88 12 Marc Janssens (Bel) 86 13 Arne Daelmans (Bel) 67 14 Björn Rondelez (Bel) 66 15 Davy Commeyne (Bel) 59 16 Petr Dlask (Cze) 57 17 Jiri Pospisil (Cze) 56 18 Wim de Vos (Ned) 45 Final rankings courtesy of cycling4all |