Preview Super 8 Classic 2025 | Who can challenge Wout van Aert in his last race of the year?
CyclingThursday, 18 September 2025 at 17:00
Autumn is in full swing, and the Belgian races are coming thick and fast. After the GP de Wallonie on Wednesday and the Championship of Flanders on Friday, it’s already time for the Super 8 Classic on Saturday. In this beer classic, Wout van Aert makes his final appearance of the season. Is the Belgian the top favorite? IDLProCycling.com looks for an answer!
The Super 8 Classic originated in 1982 as the GP Impanis. The one-day race was held until 1994, before disappearing for a while. It returned in 2011 as a 1.2 race. Just a year later, the race grew in stature: in 2012, the GP Impanis was upgraded to a 1.1 race.
Two years later, the event gained sponsorship from Primus, a Belgian pilsner, and became known as the Primus Classic. In 2015 it reached 1.Pro status, and in 2023 we saw another name change: the Super 8 Classic, named after the new beer from the Haacht Brewery.
With winners like Mathieu van der Poel, Jordi Meeus, and Taco van der Hoorn, the beer classic boasts an impressive roll of honor. This year a successor will be sought for Filippo Baroncini, who is sidelined after a heavy crash in the Tour of Poland.
Practical information Super 8 Classic 2025
- Saturday, September 20, 2025
- Participants
- Classification: 1.Pro
In this article
- Most recent winners
- Course, weather and timings
- Favorites
- TV coverage information
Most recent winners Super 8 Classic
2024 Filippo Baroncini2020 Cancelled
2023 Mathieu van der Poel
2022 Jordi Meeus
2021 Florian Sénéchal
2019 Edward Theuns
2018 Taco van der Hoorn
2017 Matteo Trentin
2016 Fernando Gaviria
2015 Sean De Bie
2014 Greg Van Avermaet
Super 8 Classic 2025: Course, weather and timings
As tradition goes in this one-day race, the start on Saturday will be in Brakel. The riders will once again head east toward Haacht, where the finish line is drawn after 200.7 kilometers. A little longer than last year, but the course is largely the same.
With the Parikeberg and the Zonnebloemstraat, two climbs come early after the start. The route then heads briefly south before turning left into the middle section of the Super 8 Classic.
The finale could already begin early, as the sequence of the Chaussée d’Ottenbourg (700 meters at 7.4%), the Moskesstraat (600 meters at 6.9%), the Smeysberg (500 meters at 8%), and the Florivalstraat (600 meters at 5.4%) starts with 75 kilometers still to go. From the Moskesstraat onward, the riders will tackle the climbs twice more in a local circuit.
Just like last year, the final categorized climb of the day comes in Bertem. After the short Hulstbergstraat, there are just under twenty kilometers left to the finish. The line is once again drawn next to the well-known Haacht Brewery, with the final 850 meters being straight and flat.
Weather
The riders will have very little to complain about on Saturday in terms of weather. With temperatures around 28 degrees Celsius, it will be pleasantly warm, while a moderate wind will blow mostly from behind for much of the day. Conditions are expected to stay dry throughout.
The riders will have very little to complain about on Saturday in terms of weather. With temperatures around 28 degrees Celsius, it will be pleasantly warm, while a moderate wind will blow mostly from behind for much of the day. Conditions are expected to stay dry throughout.
Times
Start: 1:15 p.m.
Finish: around 5:45 p.m.
Favorites Super 8 Classic 2025
Note: this section is based on the provisional start list and is therefore subject to change!
One more time we’ll get to see Wout van Aert in action this year. The Belgian from Visma | Lease a Bike wraps up an eventful 2025 in his home country. Alongside him, the Killer Bees are bringing a very strong team to the start, with Matthew Brennan, Tiesj Benoot, Victor Campenaerts, and Christophe Laporte also selected.
Anyways, the beer classic can in any case count on a strong field, as we’ll also see the rejuvenated Arnaud De Lie (Lotto), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty), and the still-recovering Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla) lining up.
With riders like Alexis Renard (Cofidis), Mike Teunissen (XDS Astana), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Axel Laurance (INEOS Grenadiers), and Matteo Trentin (Tudor), there will certainly be no shortage of attacking power.
We’ll also have to take Uno-X very seriously. The Norwegian squad brings three dangerous names to the start: Tour stage winner Jonas Abrahamsen, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner Søren Wærenskjold, and the aggressive Markus Hoelgaard.
At UAE Emirates–XRG, it will be up to António Morgado and Tim Wellens to ride into battle. They also bring Rui Oliveira, who finished third here last year.
If it does come down to a larger sprint in Haacht, riders to watch include Jonathan Milan (Lidl–Trek), Jordi Meeus (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies), and Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL). These are sprinters who should also be able to survive the climbs.
In the second tier behind them, it remains to be seen how far riders like Arnaud Démare (Arkéa–B&B Hotels), Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), Paul Penhoët (Groupama–FDJ), Luke Lamperti (Soudal Quick-Step), Pascal Ackermann (Israel–Premier Tech), and Rick Pluimers (Tudor), who finished second here last year, can hold up.
Favorites Super 8 Classic 2025, according to IDLProCycling.com
Top favorites: Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto).
Outsiders: Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Axel Laurance (INEOS Grenadiers), Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X) and Tim Wellens (UAE Emirates-XRG)
Long-shots: Mike Teunissen (XDS Astana), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X), António Morgado (UAE Emirates-XRG), Jonathan Milan(Lidl-Trek), Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies), Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL), Luke Lamperti (Soudal Quick-Step) and Rick Pluimers (Tudor)
TV Super 8 Classic 2025
Those who want to watch the Belgian one-day race Saturday will have to tune in to streaming service HBO Max. The broadcast will start at 3:45 p.m.
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Latest Comments
- Roger Vlaeminck says Mads is not a good rider? Where is the headline saying you don't even have to be a good rider to win the World Road Championship says Roger Vlaeminck, who never won it!!? Perhaps his aging mind needs to think about what the heck he's saying.packfiller7103-09-2025
- Wow, there is so much criticism of the UAE XRG riders. Why so much criticism is being leveled solely at the riders is baffling. The UAE XRG management deserves a good amount of the criticism aimed at the team, as a whole. They have not managed the talent they have at all. They failed miserably to properly handle young Isaac del Toro on that penultimate day of the Giro. And they have not handled Juan Ayuso well either. If they didn't have Tadej Pogacar in their roster, we might not be talking about them as winners, at all. So many think that Ayuso has shown that he is not a "team" player at all. Does anybody think that he might be thinking about his own future at this point? That he might want to feel like the team has his back, when they load the pressure onto him? And Joao is not a team leader. That burden might be laid on him by the management, but they need to properly support that assignment, not make it a contentious situation, within the team. And then how management has conducted themselves throughout this parting of ways between themselves and Ayuso has been totally indiscreet. And yet people want to pile onto Ayuso when he tells the truth about the manner that this is all soap opera is developing. He wants out. He shouldn't be getting so much negative criticism for that. It's a situation that has soured. Yes he has a contract, but he is not the first, nor will he be the last that wants to get out of a relationship that just isn't working anymore. And DeCauwer seems to have very vague reasons for criticizing Almeida. He does realize that Jonas is the second best Grand Tour rider of this current generation, so it should be no shame that Joao is behind him in the standings. Riders are giving their all in an extremely difficult sport that stretches them, often beyond their limits. Now many are wanting to send them to Behavioral School as well? The criticism ought to mellow out, or it ought to simply be ignored, as nothing more than blah, blah, blah, not worth the headlines it gets
reemmo002-09-2025 - In 5yrs, Pogi will be a top Twitch streamer living on baked goods while Urska is still racing.Veganpotter11-08-2025
- All they learned is that at the end of a 3 week race, Wout can beat him on a slightly bumpy stage. Obviously, this is very much thanks to Wout not racing for GC every day. This doesn't teach them a thing for Jonas beating Pogi. Not saying Jonas will never beat him again. But this absolutely won't have anything to do with it if he does beat him.Veganpotter28-07-2025
- Well, he eventually Pogacar pays the price for his insane spring campaign which was really crazyRosenkohl196125-07-2025
- Maybe I was a bit disrespectful to Heiden. What he did was unique and exceptional but he wasn't the only one who combined those distances, nowadays it is just not possible and nobody competes in both distances. The same is true for cycling with for example the combination of Roubaix and de Tour de France. In Merckx era there were more riders who managed a top10 in both races than currently.Joostmehrtens19-06-2025
- Two old men shouting at pigeons in the park…JonS16-06-2025
- Out of touch old men hankering after their youth through rose tinted spectacles, their arrogance almost outshines their irrelevance. Turn the volume down, this modern stuff just isn't music like we used to sing...johnny20whales16-06-2025
- In talking speed skating, the days when Heiden did that, nobody else did that. And Eddy couldn't do the equivalent of the bike. His 200 on the velodrome was good, but not world competitive for gold. Heiden was in his own world on the ice, moreso than Eddy if we pretend Eric didn't have a very short career on the ice.Veganpotter16-06-2025
- They wouldn't have dropped HIM so easily.... the GOAT. They would have dropped the rest from that era easily thoughVeganpotter16-06-2025
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