Antwerp hosted the first Scheldeprijs in 1907 — six years before the Tour of Flanders even existed — making it the oldest cycling race still run in the region. The inaugural edition started and finished in the city itself, closing on the boards of the long-demolished Zurenborg velodrome.
For decades the Scheldeprijs stayed a largely Belgian affair; it took 46 years before a foreign rider, Dutchman Hans Dekkers, won it in 1953. Today it's a flat, fast sprinters' classic run in the week between Paris–Roubaix and Liège–Bastogne–Liège, with Marcel Kittel's five wins standing as the record.
Antwerp's cyclo-cross pedigree is just as sharp: the Scheldecross, part of the UCI World Cup since 2021, has been won by Mathieu van der Poel eight times since its 2005 founding — a level of dominance matched by almost no one else in the modern sport.
Between the flat sprinters' roads of the Scheldeprijs and the mud of the Scheldecross, Antwerp holds a rare double identity in Belgian cycling — one foot in the oldest tradition, the other in its most current champion.
