The women's race opens the evening in Diegem under the floodlights, on a course that crosses a railway bridge, climbs to a sand pit and squeezes through narrow corners in the village streets and park. It was first held on the last day of 2000, and Marianne Vos, Sanne Cant and Puck Pieterse now share the record with three wins each. Pieterse has made the race her own since it returned after the pandemic, winning alone in 2022 and again in 2023 and 2025, with Lucinda Brand winning in 2024. Her 2025 win came the hard way: she opened the first gap with a strong run through the sand, punctured on the penultimate lap and still held off Marie Schreiber by twelve seconds. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado was third that night, her fifth podium in a row in Diegem without a win. In the cold and dark between Christmas and New Year, it rewards riders who run the sand cleanly and keep their nerve in the corners.