Sven Nys got back to his winning ways after his defeat at the world championships when he won yesterday's Krawatencross in Lille. Having overcome a bad start, he reeled in the lone attack Tom Meeusen and came out of the tactical battle as the winner when he beat Lars van der Haahr and Meeusen in the final sprint to build up a virtually unassailable lead in the Bpost Bank Trofee standings.

Sven Nys may have lost his rainbow jersey to Zdenek Stybar but the former world champion is still at the top of the cyclo-cross hierarchy. Today he again proved his strength when he won the Krawatencross in Lille, the penultimate round of the prestigious Bpost Bank Trofee series.

Nys got his race off to a bad start when he found himself riding outside the top 10 after the first corner. As opposed to this, Niels Albert who has been out of form recently and is usually a slow starter, came out with all guns blazing, immediately going clear with Meeusen on his wheel.

Albert is Nys' nearest rival in the overall standings which is determined by time instead of points. Albert led Meeusen across the intermediate sprint to take 15 bonus seconds while Nys now faced a long chase to get back in contention.

Meeusen took over the initiative in the front and this prompted Albert to make some mistakes, meaning that the former world champion fell off the pace. At the same time, Nys had got his motor going and with Lars van der Haahr hanging on for dear life, he started to motor himself back into the race.

The duo quickly passed Albert but Meeusen was much harder to get back. The Telenet rider had a 10-second hap for several laps until the junction was finally made.

"I had a hard job to come back on a strong Meeusen. I was confident that I would close it down because it's not easy to hold on to a 10-second lead. From there, it was a tactical battle," Nys told Sporza.

From there, it was a fierce battle between Meeusen and Nys who kept attacking each other but none of them was able to get the decisive gap. While the two of them rode aggressively, the only thing van der Haahr could do was to hang on for dear life.

"I was never comfortably in the group, always the third wheel. When I returned to the front, they exchanged attacks," Van der Haar said.

When the riders hit the final lap, Meeusen and Nys were still in with a shot at victory.

"Today I was as good as Nys. In the tactical battle I felt I had things under control," Meeusen told Sporza.

Nonetheless, Nys again showed that he was the strongest when he launched a fierce attack halfway through the lap. He opened up a gap and even though Meeusen managed to close it down just before the finishing straight, the effort had been costly and so the decision appeared to have been made.

"I led out the sprint because after my earlier attack, I recovered a little while the others were on their limit to close it back down," Nys said.

When starting the sprint, Meeusen suddenly sat up, waving his arms in frustration.

"In the sprint, my chain skipped a gear," he said. "It wasn't a shifting mistake because I was already in the right gear. Just like in Leuven [flatting in the last lap in a two-man battle with Nys], I'm losing out on the win due to details."

The incident decided the race as Nys had no problem holding off a tired van der Haahr while Meeusen had to be content with 3rd. van der Haahr who is known as a very fast finisher, felt that Meeusen's bad luck had also hampered his chances.

"In the sprint, Tom's chain blocked, and so I wasn't able to get back on Sven," Van der Haar said.

The Belgian champion extended his lead in the Bpost-series up to a massive gap of 4:05 over Niels Albert (BKCP-Powerplus), who finished fifth in Lille at more than a minute from the three leaders. Meeusen moves into third overall at 8:33 from Nys.

The best riders will be back in action on Sunday in the penultimate round of the Superprestige series.

Result:

1. Sven Nys 1.03.06

2. Lars van der Haahr

3. Tom Meeusen +0.04

4. Kevin Pauwels +0.38

5. Niels Albert +1.08

6. Corne Van Kessel

7. Radomir Simunek +1.16

8. Diether Vanthourenhout +1.23

9. Bart Aernouts

10. Jim Aernouts +1.44