\u00a0
French racer Theo Ugoni, who was third last season, got the programme under way with victory from Wachs and Noah Urda \u2013 another racer who made the Grand Final in 2025 \u2013 before Tino Bouin, who was fourth last season, defeated Denmark’s Patrick Kruse and Mulford was followed across the line by home racer Niek Meijerink.
\u00a0
The fast, challenging conditions forced riders to mix up their lines to find maximum traction and Wachs produced a polished performance in his second Heat to overhaul the fast-starting Kruse, who was second in 2025, to take his first win of the afternoon with Britain’s Max Perry crossing the line in third after being disqualified in his opening Heat for a false start.
\u00a0
After Bouin maintained his perfect record with a clear-cut win from his compatriot Ugoni, Mulford moved alongside him on eight points with a victory from his fellow British rider Ashton Vale who was in impressive form on his international Long Track debut.
\u00a0
Bouin made it three-from-three with a win over Kruse before Perry shocked Wachs and Mulford secured his third win of the programme following an early pass on Urda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/image-2-1024x682.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n2026 FIM Long Track Under 23 World Cup in Roden \u00a9 Jesper Veldhuizen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The anticipated showdown in the fourth block of Heats between Mulford and Bouin failed to materialise when the British rider missed the ninety-second start deadline due to a mechanical issue, allowing the French rider to comfortably extend his advantage with win number four. Rising British star Jake Mulford regained the FIM Long Track U23 World Cup at Roden in the Netherlands,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[409,311],"class_list":["post-12726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-long-track","tag-motorsports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--scaled.jpg",2560,1706,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jake-Mulford--scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12729,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12726\/revisions\/12729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\n
\u00a0
Kruse then underlined his credentials for a place behind the tapes in the Grand Final with his first win of the afternoon after leading Wachs across the line \u2013 and in the process tying the defending champion for joint second \u2013 before Perry claimed a second win that brought him firmly into contention.
\u00a0
With the leading five riders all making the cut for the Grand Final, Meijerink claimed a popular consolation win to get the deciding block of Heats up and running before Mulford, following a frantic race to get his spare machine to the line, led home Wachs and Kruse as all three booked their places in the afternoon’s main race.
\u00a0
The fifteenth and final Heat was won by Urda, but a retirement by Vale handed second to Perry and lifted Bouin into third, ensuring Bouin qualified on top and Perry snatched the remaining place in the Grand Final from Urda thanks to his two Heat victories.
\u00a0
Consistent fast starts had been key to Mulford’s string of impressive performances and when the tapes went up on the Grand Final he grabbed an early advantage, quickly dealt with a strong initial challenge from Bouin and cruised clear to add his name to the FIM Long Track U23 World Cup honour roll for a second time.
\u00a0
Bouin resisted race-long pressure from Perry to secure second with Kruse fourth, but Wachs’ hopes of retaining the title ended with a retirement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"