Alvarado takes silver in the CX European Championships
With a strong performance and a hard-fought race, Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado crossed the finish line second at the European Cyclocross Championships in Pontevedra, Spain. A nail-biting final sprint ultimately won by two-time world champion Fem van Empel.
“Played my cards, result was bittersweet. Sometimes the gamble doesn’t pay off, but the grind was worth it,” wrote the 26-year-old Dutch rider in an Instagram post. While it wasn’t the outcome she expected, Alvarado said she was happy with the work done.
Alvarado went full-throttle through out the 3,350-meters long circuit. “I tried to make it difficult for everyone. I think that I really succeeded towards the end, but in the end, it is all about whether you have a sprint or not. And there was someone with a better sprint,” she said in a post-race interview.
Victory for Ceylin Alvarado at Superprestige Ruddervoorde
What a spectacular second week of the cyclo-cross season for Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado. After an opening podium at Exact Cross Beringen, the FENIX-Deceuninck rider won both Kermiscross Ardooie and Superprestige Ruddervoorde.
“A less season opener with a few mechanicals but ending the first week with a hard-fought victory made up for it. Grateful for a good week of racing,” Alvarado wrote on an Instagram post, where she acknowledged that it felt great “to have such a good start after some hectic and uncertain months.”
At Kermiscross Ardooie, the Dutch rider secured a solo victory after launching a decisive attack on the third lap. In an impressive show of strength and speed, she crossed the finish line 28 seconds ahead Marion Norbert Riberolle (Crelan-Corendon) and 48 seconds in front of Alicia Franck (De Ceuster-Bowpunt).
Three days later, Alvardo won the first round of the Telenet Superprestige series. What a race! She dominated the course along Fem van Empel (Team Visma-Lease a Bike, Lucinda Brand (Baloise Trek Lions) and Sara Casasola (Crelan-Corendon). Not even a fall on the second to last lap deterred her focus. She was explosive uphill and sped through the sand sections, which allowed her to dash for the finish line ahead of Van Empel and Brand.
Ceylin Alvarado opens her Cyclo-cross season with a podium!
Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado celebrated the start of her 2024-2025 Cyclo-cross season with a strong second place at the opening round of the Exact Cross series in Beringen. This was also her debut with the FENIX-Deceuninck jersey, after racing under Alpecin-Deceuninck for the past five years.
Alvarado crossed the finish line 42 seconds after world champion Fem van Empel and 34 seconds ahead of Lucinda Brand. The FENIX-Deceuninck rider started the race with a lead but a crashed on the second lap forced her to change her bike. However, she quickly got back and managed to regain positions throughout the muddy course.
Van der Poel wins his first Gravel World Championship
With a spectacular solo win in Leuven, Mathieu van der Poel is the new Gravel World Championship. The victory further confirms his cycling versatility and multidisciplinarity, adding an eight World Champion title to his palmarès.
“It was a big goal for me. It’s super nice to add another rainbow to the collection, in another discipline as well, so I’m super happy with this one. It’s super nice also to finish the season like this. It’s amazing,” said Van der Poel in a post-race interview.
The Dutchman wrote aggressively throughout the Belgian course, attacking early and going briefly solo after 60 km and later again with 13.5 km before the finish line. “I just wanted to make the race as hard as possible because I knew on the local lap with a big group it could be a difficult situation for me. I tried to put everyone on the limit. When Florian (Vermeersch) went, we had a good cooperation. My legs were also hurting. You never know in a sprint, especially on a gravel bike, so I tried one last time on the hardest section of the course, and it’s always nice when you find yourself alone like this.”
The Gravel rainbow jersey is the last in a list of eight World Championships won by Van der Poel, including one on road (2023) and six in cyclo-cross (2015, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, and 2024).
Second for Christina Schweinberger at Binche Chimay Binche
The fourth edition of Binche Chimay Binche pour Dames finished with a bunch sprint which saw Christina Schweinberger crossing the finish line second. Her FENIX-Deceuninck teammate Marthe Truyen was fifth.
The 117.2-km-long course is known for its final climb along the famously cobbled Rue de la Pepinière, which must be completed less than a kilometer before its also cobbled finish. The race, held between the Belgian cities if Binche and Chimay in Wallonia, is one of the last dates in the road calendar.
Puck Pieterse is the New U23 Road World Champion
Puck Pieterse closed her already spectacular 2024 road season by conquering the UCI World Championships U23 title, adding another rainbow jersey to her incredible palmares. She finished 13th the 154.1 km-long Elite road race, her first with the National Dutch team.
“Road is nice. I like races like today that are always full gas. I like to see how far I can go,” Puck said. Her victory in Zurich came amid intense weather conditions. “It was really cold, especially every time we went into the longer descents. I was shivering and shaking by the last two laps. You don’t want to go any faster because your legs are gone. But you also want to ride faster because it is so cold that you want to warm up. But there was no warming up with this rain.”
This new U23 title comes a month after 22-year-old rider won the UCI MTB World Championships cross country race. It is also a highlight of her road season, which was marked by a stage win and the youth leader jersey at the Tour de France and two podiums in the Spring Classics.
Bronze medal for Julie de Wilde in the U23 Individual Time Trial at the World Championships
“A bronze medal feels so good after a year with more downs then ups!”, wrote Julie de Wilde on an Instagram post after taking the third place in Individual Time Trial at the World Championships in the U23 category.
The Belgian rider completed the 29.9 km-long Swiss course from Gossau to Zürich in 42 minutes and 37 seconds.
“I want to thank my team, the national team, and everybody who’s close to me for keeping the confidence. This performance gives me some extra motivation for this week to go all-in another time!”, said de Wilde.
She will be competing again on Saturday September 28, when she will represent Belgium in the World Championships Road Race.
First-ever Podium for Marion Norbert-Riberolle and Belgium in the European Championships Mixed Relay
Belgium won its first-ever medal in the team time trial mixed relay at the 2024 European Championships with a third-place finish. And FENIX-Deceuninck rider Marion Norbert-Riberolle is one of the six riders who made it possible.
The mixed relay is one the lesser-known road events. It was introduced for the first time in 2019 for both World and European Championships. Each competing country has a team of six riders, three men and three women which will take turns to do a part of the course. The time recorded is the sum of the one done by the men and the women riders.
The Belgian men’s trio was composed by Edward Theuns, Noah Vandenbranden, and Victor Vercouillie, while the women’s were Alana Castrique, Jesse Vandenbulcke and Norbert-Riberolle. They finished third behind Italy and Germany, which won the gold and the silver, medals.
Christina Schweinberger Takes bronze at European Time Trial Championships
Austrian Christina Schweinberger won the bronze medal in the individual time trial at the 2024 European Championships in Hasselt, Belgium. The FENIX-Deceuninck rider completed the 31.2 km course in 40 minutes and 2 seconds.
“It feels good. This year wasn’t going so smooth, so I’m really happy with the podium finish. I was a bit nervous before starting but it was also a good motivation. Lotte (Kopecky) was unbeatable, I knew that before, but I gave my best and I’m happy to have gotten the medal,” said Schweinberger in a post-race interview.
“I think I started a bit fast. I invested more at the beginning, maybe too much, so I lost a bit in the end. In the last kilometer, it was full on head wind, and it felt never-ending. But compared with other ITTs of that length like Glassgow last year, it passed much faster. It a was a good course and I’m happy.”
The European Championships ITT was won by Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) while Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) took the silver.
Schweinberger is now looking forward to the Road World Championships, which will take place in Zurich, Switzerland from September 21st until 29th. The Austrian rider is expected to compete in both the ITT and the road races.
Puck Pieterse is the 2024 MTB World Champion!
Puck Pieterse made history on Sunday as she won her first elite MTB World Championships, becoming the first Dutch woman to ever win the rainbow jersey in a XCO event.
“I cannot comprehend it yet! I wrote at my own pace from the start, and I thought ‘I need to go all in if I want to win this’. I kept pushing and apparently it was enough. My first elite world title, and I’m just so happy,” said Puck in a post race interview.
The 22-year-old rider dominated from the start the Olympic Cross-country race, crossing the finish line with a lead of 59-second ahead of her Dutch teammate Anne Terpstra and Italian Martina Berta. The 4-km course in Pal Arinsal, Andorra, required five laps that she completed in one hour, nine minutes and forty-one seconds.
Puck adds this victory to an already impressive season, in which she won the European mountain bike title and three World Cup races. It also follows the disappointment at the Paris Olympic games where she missed the podium after a puncture two laps before the finish.
