Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 4:24 PM
Marianne Vos was crowned clay world champion on Saturday. It was her fourteenth world title for the 37-year-old all-rounder, who is active in several disciplines. “A world title is always special, but today I didn’t think about the other thirteen for a moment. I was just busy with today’s race,” she said in the flash interview afterwards.
Vos won her first world titles among the elite women in 2006. She first became cyclo-cross world champion in Zeddam and then took the world road title in Salzburg. She went on to win World Cup gold seven more times in the field, namely in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2022. On the road, she won a rainbow jersey twice more after Salzburg, in 2012 and 2013. Before that, she had has already won two world titles on the track: in 2008 she became world champion in the points race, in 2011 world champion in scratch. And now comes the victory at the Gravel World Championships.
On the road with Kopecky
“It was of course nice to be at the front with Lotte,” the Vos, looking back, referred to Lotte Kopecky, who lost out to the Dutch in a sprint-à-deux. “But you know it will be tough. She is so fast that it is not perfect, but when you drive around with such a top class rider – who has just become world road champion and is in good shape – then that is fantastic. It is very nice to race together here, especially with this audience.”
Vos and Kopecky rode together at the front for a long time. “But before that we also rode for quite a long time with a fairly large group,” says Vos. “Lotte set the pace very high on a heavier section. At first there were four of us, with Lorena Wiebes and Soraya Paladin there. But on another tough stretch we were left with two.”
Two-man sprint
In Leuven, Vos tried in vain to get rid of Kopecky on the Ramberg. “I didn’t trust my sprint, but I also knew it would be difficult to escape. When I saw that it wasn’t going to work, I decided to wait.”
