Reigning women's elite cross-country mountain bike World Champion Puck Pieterse made a big adjustment to her race calendar this week to move closer to not one, but two more World titles in a single season. The Dutch multi-discipline rider will forego the final two races on the MTB World Cup circuit to challenge elite fields in the UCI Road World Championships and the UCI Gravel World Championships.
After earning a bronze medal in the women's elite category at the Cyclocross World Championships in February, the 22-year-old had a flurry of success on the road with her Alpecin-Deceuninck road team including podiums at both Ronde van Drenthe and Trofeo Alfredo Binda and a stage win at the Tour de France Femmes. In the summer she focused on XCC and XCO races, which led her to fourth place in the Paris Olympic Games cross-country MTB race.
The Dutch cycling federation, KNWU, gave her an option to diversify the end of her season, and she jumped at the chance to remain in Europe for road and gravel challenges, rather than travel to North America for XCO and XCC World Cup points.
"Combining multiple disciplines sometimes results in having to make tough decisions. After a successful Tour de France Femmes, I got the choice to start at the Road World Championships in Zürich and do Gravel Worlds the week after [in Belgium], or go to the XCO World Cups overseas. Think to be able to race Worlds is always special and something I don’t want to miss, so I went for the first option," she wrote on Instagram Monday.
"This however means I won’t show my rainbow jersey or defend my 2nd place in the overall this year. But next year I’ll for sure be back racing the World Cups giving it my 100%. Already looking forward to it."
Despite missing the first pair of MTB world cups that were held in Brazil, she quickly moved into first place at the top of the elite women's standings for XCC and XCO with podiums in all eight races in which she competed. While she is ranked second in both cross-country categories, the Dutch MTB champion will now skip the final two stops remaining MTB World Cup circuit, a North American swing at Lake Placid, New York from September 27-19 and Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec from October 4-6.
The road-gravel double at world championships would be her first appearance at both events. She has demonstrated in spring Classics that she's more than capable on pavé and rough terrain, though she has never competed in a major gravel race. Along with her two podiums at one-day Women's WorldTour races, she finished sixth at the Tour of Flanders, seventh at Gent-Wevelgem, and 13th at Strade Bianche.
It was after her near-miss to earn a medal at the Olympic Games that Pieterse made a statement with a stage 4 win at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. She not only excelled over well-known climbs from Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège but sprinted ahead of Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) to secure her first WorldTour victory on the road.
“It’s unbelievable, actually. The last few days I had super-good legs, and today I didn’t feel my legs at all. To take the win here in a sprint against Demi, that’s really a dream come true,” Pieterse said in mid-August after the stage. She also wore the mountains classification jersey for a few days and won the best young rider classification that week.
KNWU had not named a full roster for elite women at the UCI Road World Championships as of September 11, but Pieterse was quick to note her invitation to compete for her inaugural appearance at Road Worlds. She would be expected to line up for the 154.1km women's road race on Saturday, September 28. The men's Dutch team was named last Friday, with Mathieu van der Poel set to defend his road title.
To add to her growing collection of off-road achievements, Pieterse also expects the federation to name her to the final roster for the Gravel World Championships, which will take place for elite women on Saturday, October 5 in Leuven, Belgium.
The 22-year-old Dutch rider could very well have to replicate her Tour stage sprint at the Gravel World Championships, where she could contest a podium finish with reigning champion Niewiadoma and last year's third-place finisher Vollering.
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