What a surprise! Marie Schreiber remains ahead of Lucinda Brand and Puck Pieterse in the Hulst World Cup

The Hulst World Cup has had a surprising winner. After a flashy start, Marie Schreiber started a solo and held strong for the remainder of the cross. Lucinda Brand came second, Puck Pieterse third.

World champion Fem van Empel was absent from the Hulst World Cup due to a fall during training, in which she injured her knee. Present: Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, Puck Pieterse and Lucinda Brand. The latter had a poorer start, because she did not immediately hit her pedal. Meanwhile, Marie Schreiber, as so often happens, was the first to dive into the field. Blanka Kata Vas, Zoe Bäckstedt and Leonie Bentveld also had a good start.

Schreiber holds strong
Schreiber opened up a gap on the opening lap and crossed the line with an eleven-second lead over Bäckstedt, the first pursuer. Pieterse, Vas and Brand followed at seventeen seconds, Alvarado, together with Annemarie Worst, was in a group just behind them. In the second of six rounds, the image of the pursuers changed several times, but Schreiber had nothing to do with that. The Luxembourgish continued to push hard and extended her lead to half a minute.

The first pursuers at this point were Brand, Pieterse, Bäckstedt, Worst and Inge van der Heijden. The five did not stay together in the following lap: Brand first rode away on her own, later Pieterse and Van der Heijden joined. They followed half cross at 23 seconds from Schreiber. Pieterse, Van der Heijden and the returning Worst remained behind in lap four, but Brand reduced the difference to nineteen seconds. However, she did not come back quickly enough, because there were only two laps left to ride.

Win for Schreiber
And Schreiber hardly delivered in the penultimate round either. When the bell sounded, she still had sixteen seconds on Brand, while Pieterse followed a few seconds later. That turned out to be enough for the SD Worx-Protime rider to win. After winning three smaller crosses earlier this season, she was now the best in a World Cup for the first time in her career. It was also the first time since October 31, 2021 that a World Cup match was won by a non-Dutch player.

Second place went to Lucinda Brand, who also remains firmly in the lead in the World Cup. Puck Pieterse had to settle for third place.