Thijs Al had to miss the last couple weeks due to an injury but he returned to the World Cup circuit in Kalmthout.

Jonathan Page

After the start, I went to the same flight of stairs I had been during the women's race. It soon turned out that one of my favourite riders, Klaas Vantornout was leading the field in the first lap.

Dancing moves: Gerben De Knegt tackles the same corner with elegance.

Niels Albert

Sven Nys got hold up in the first lap but it didn't take him much time to catch up with the front of the field.

Stybar's first lap was quite rubbish but then he constantly gained ground and after the third or the fourth lap he started to lead the race. From time to time, he tried to put a significant gap between him and his chasers but this gap varied from lap to lap and never became substantial.

It was getting late and it the amount of available light was constantly decreasing. There's always a point where the flash is not just a fill-light anymore but becomes dominant in picture. If I can, I try not to use too much direct flash, however, in this situation I didn't really have a choice.

Another photo, same problem: not much available light, direct flash, not so good photo.

Gerben De Knegt in the penultimate lap.

There were some Mongolian riders competing again, sadly, they were lapped and called out of the race pretty soon, again.

Stybar started the last lap in the first place and there seemed to be a sizeable gap between him and chasing riders Nys and Albert.

However, Nys managed to overtake him half-way into the last lap.

Stybar was trying to catch up with Nys.

And that was Albert's plan as well.

But today, Nys was the strongest, claiming the win over Stybar and Albert.

We woke up quite early, only to see that it's snowing. The concept of winter tyres on cars seem to have avoided the Belgians, we saw all sorts of cars skidding and sliding cluelessly. It is both annoying and dangerous, however, with winter tyres on, it still took longer to get there, due to the heavy snowfall. We arrived there around noon and the elite men were already training for their race.

The teams were preparing for the upcoming race in the heavy snowfall.

I like taking these portraits before races. Most photographers doesn't seem to care, but I'm fascinated how differently each rider prepares for the race. Some of them are just smiling or having a chat whilst others are trying to concentrate on the upcoming effort and to cut out the external disturbing factors. Daphny Van Den Brand was definitely doing the latter.

Normally, I don't stay at the start area to take photos of the start itself, this time I stayed and saw as Van Den Brand took a good start. The start straight was very long which allowed the riders to reach pretty high speeds which was quite impressive in conditions like these.

Quite close to the start area, there was a short flight of stairs. It was packed with other photographers so I didn't want to go up there. I liked the angle, as the riders were cornering. This was the first lap, it saw Van Den Brand in the lead.

Marianne Vos was trailing behind, but the difference was marginal which promised an interesting race. Here, she just ran up the stairs, chasing Van Den Brand.

Hanka Kupfernagel.

The corner wasn't too sharp but it caused some troubles when riders followed each other closely. I managed to catch as Gabriella Day's dismount caused Linda Van Rijen some trouble.

After the first lap, I went to my next spot, another set of stairs, that was at the beginning of a zig-zag section. I used the 17-40 wide angle lens here plus an on-camera flash. I would have preferred a two flash setup but I just didn't have the time to set it up and test it properly. Compton, again, wasn't strong enough to threaten the Van Den Brand or Vos, but she managed to up a decent gap between her and her chasers.

This is an angle where the 2.8 aperture comes really handy. The 24-70 lens thus gives me a wide angle AND some nice and narrow depth of field. I really liked this spot so spent one or two laps here. The leader of the race was constantly different, Vos and Van Den Brand kept riding very close to each other.

Helen Wyman

Daphny Van Den Brand

Whilst Belgians dominate the men's field, the only Belgian rider in the women's top 10 is the 18 years old Sanne Cant, who, in spite of her young age, seems to perform very well at every race. She is certainly someone worth watching.

In the last lap, she was clearly leading the race.

Marianne Vos, chasing Van Den Brand.

You gotta love Sanne Van Paassen. Her helmet is always tilted and she always makes a really struggling face during races. Though her ride wasn't as solid as it normally is, she managed to retain the 4th place overall.

With Van Den Brand's win, the World Cup got even more exciting. Compton's lead over Van Den Brand is now only 10 points and Vos also might have a shot at the overall title, though, she's 50 points behind (the winner gets 60 points for a win, 50 for 2nd place, 45 for 3rd), so unless the former two makes a mistake, her chances are slim.

After the race and the award ceremony, the winner is taken to doping control. There's a chaperone, who keeps an eye on subject from the second they crossed the finish line and shadows them everywhere.

And the weather just got nicer and nicer. Stay tuned for the men's race.

Lajos, my friend in Brussels, took me to the airport. I gave him a sticker, he happily applied onto the back of his car. The check-in went smoothly and there was no indication of any delays, at this point, all seemed to be fine

Though my belt raised some suspicions, I got through security. An advertisement with Eddy Merckx: he's still very popular in Belgium.

Things went downhill from here, however. First our flight to Frankfurt was delayed with an hour. That's not too bad, but there were loads of people from a previous Frankfurt flight, who wanted to get on our flight but it wasn't possible as it was full. Cheerful situation indeed.
Then it started to snow and we got stuck, in the plane, at the gate. First we weren't allowed to leave (our take-off window closed) then we weren't able to leave (the little tow-car had a malfunction, it as unable to move the plane). Spent an hour on the runway then finally, we were allowed to take off. Things went fine from here on and we landed in Frankfurt without problems.

I was quite happy to see that my flight to Budapest was delayed - it was supposed to take off a couple minutes prior to our arrival. I checked out the cafeteria and opted for a nice pair of frankfurter sausages (what else, really). The guy was really friendly and doubled my order, free-of-charge. Nice, I thought.
Then came the bad news. First, we were delayed and then the cancelled the flight altogether. Yey, we're gonna spend the night in Frankfurt. Smashing.

They started to hand out taxi and hotel vouchers, mine was at the bottom of the landing card pile so I got my vouchers an hour and a half later, around 12:00 am. The taxi took me to very post hotel in downtown Frankfurt, the Westin Grand Hotel. It sounded and looked post but it soon turned out that they sent another 100 people from other cancelled flights there, so it took them another hour and a half to check us in. I got to bed at 2am. They told us to call Lufthansa's info line to enquiry about our booking, however, it was either busy or I couldn't get through to anybody. I went to sleep but as the first flight was to leave at 7.50am, I had to get up at 5am. Smashing.

Yes, you guessed it right, I didn't catch the morning flight but hopefully will be on the 1.15pm one. There are still a couple more hours, but this is nothing, compared to the previous, almost 24 hours. I'm supposed to fly back to Brussels on Friday, I'm a bit afraid, though, how am I gonna be able to do that. Please, keep your fingers crossed!

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We arrive to Kalmthout safe and sound, the snow is amazing, I'm really looking forward to today' race. I'm off to the course now, to take a look at it and to find good spots.