Tibor del Grosso

He won the Dutch junior cyclo-cross title in 2020, then the junior national road race and time trial in 2021, and added the under-23 cross-country mountain bike championship in 2022. Road and cross have run in parallel ever since, and the shape of his year settled into the Alpecin pattern of a full road season followed by a winter of cyclo-cross.

Thibau Nys beat him by four seconds for the under-23 world title at Hoogerheide in 2023, in front of a home crowd, though Del Grosso left those championships with gold in the mixed team relay. He took the under-23 title himself at Tábor in 2024, won the under-23 World Cup series that season, and defended the rainbow jersey at Liévin in 2025.

Alpecin-Deceuninck moved him up from their development squad to the WorldTour team for 2025. A stage of the Tour of Türkiye in April gave him his first professional win. He rode the cobbled classics that spring, taking sixth at Dwars door Vlaanderen and tenth at Brabantse Pijl, was third at Dwars door het Hageland, and finished fifth overall at the Tour of Norway.

He had opened that year by winning the elite Dutch cyclo-cross title at Oisterwijk, going clear in the closing metres to finish seven seconds up on Pim Ronhaar. His first elite cyclo-cross winter followed. He beat Wout van Aert in a sprint at the Superprestige round in Heusden-Zolder in December 2025, was third behind Mathieu van der Poel at Gavere, and lost the Dendermonde World Cup to Nys by two seconds.

Van der Poel was ahead of him again at Zonhoven in early January 2026, and at Maasmechelen and Hoogerheide on consecutive days later that month, Del Grosso second in all three. He kept the Dutch title at Huijbergen, ahead of Lars van der Haar and Ronhaar.

At the world championships at Hulst he took elite silver, thirty-five seconds down on Van der Poel with Nys third, two days after riding the mixed team relay the Dutch team won.

The comparison with Van der Poel was built on the shared nationality, the shared team and the same road-and-cross calendar, and it hardened across the 2025-26 winter. His own wins have come from small groups in the closing minutes rather than from long solo attacks.