Lucinda Brand Overcomes Crash and Alvarado to Win Second Cyclocross World Title

A dramatic race, a cool winner

To win her second world title, the 36-year-old Baloise Verzekeringen–Het Poetsbureau Lions rider had to overcome a late crash and a determined Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado (Fenix–Premier Tech), who finished second, 27 seconds behind. Alvarado’s teammate, the unlucky Puck Pieterse, finished third, at 51 seconds, after a hard crash that deprived her of any chance for the victory.

“It feels amazing,” said Brand after the race. “It’s really good after such a great season to win on the most important day, [as] some people call it. It’s fantastic [to win] in front of a home crowd. I previously won the title already; the relief might be bigger if you didn’t have it yet… What makes it way more special is that there were way more people to cheer me on instead of five people, staff.” Brand won her first world championship in 2021, when attendance at sporting events was restricted due to Covid.

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Though she was the dominant woman cyclocross rider this winter, after the shocking retirement of three-time world champion Fem van Empel, it wasn’t a seamless season for Brand. Her mother died during the winter, and she experienced a brief slump after winning 13 races in a row. She even finished tenth in Maasmechelen, one week ago, after 63 consecutive podium finishes, and came out of the race with a calf injury.

“I think I’m quite good at just focusing on that little thing that I’m doing at the right moment,” Brand told journalists, as reported by Cyclingnews. “So I’m not really distraught from the things that happen around me. Sometimes it’s a weakness, of course, in life to move on all the time and not to think too much about what happened, but in this case, I think it’s a strength for me. So I took it with two hands.”

This was the seventh world title in a row won by a Dutch woman and the fourth time in succession that Dutch women had swept all three spots on the podium. The word for that is dominance.

How it played out

Brand, Alvarado, and Pieterse were at the front of the race almost from the first pedal-stroke, though the world champion got off to her usual slow start and had to catch her compatriots. The dangerous Amandine Fouquenet (Pauwels Sauzen–Altez Industriebouw), who usually is the quickest off the line, had a particularly poor start from which she never recovered, and she also crashed late on stage 5. She eventually finished fifth, 58 seconds behind the winner.

Pieterse was the most active of the three Dutch riders, attacking on the technical sections, where she excelled, to pressure the chasers and try to gap Brand and Alvarado. She led her two compatriots by 3 seconds at the end of lap 2 of 6, with the chase group, led by Blanka Vas, 12 seconds behind. But Brand attacked and passed her at the start of lap 3 and quickly opened a gap.

That forced Pieterse out of her comfort zone, and she took a hard tumble coming out of a steep descent, landing on her right shoulder and her back. She was momentarily dazed and had to change her bike. When she looked up again, she was riding with the chase group in the contest for third place.

“I crashed quite a bit, quite out of my head,” she told journalists afterwards. “And I knew Lucinda and Ceylin were so strong they wouldn’t wait for me, unfortunately. Afterwards, I had to change bikes, and the group behind me came back, so then I knew that I’m not closing that gap of 30 seconds anymore.”

She was clearly the best of the chasers and easily won the contest for the final podium spot, though she punched her helmet in self-reproach as she crossed the finish line.

At the end of lap 3, Brand had a lead of 6 seconds on Alvarado, with the chase group now 38 seconds behind and well out of it. She then upped the pace again and stretched her lead over Alvarado, so that the race appeared to be over. But it wasn’t, because Brand crashed on lap 4, tumbling over her handlebars. She quickly remounted, but Alvarado caught and passed her – and Brand was massaging her right hip, a worrying sign. Alvarado crossed the lap 4 finish line in the lead, but Brand had recovered from the mishap and rode away again, putting 10 seconds between her and Alvarado by the end of lap 5, a lead she gradually extended until the finish.

But there was still more drama in the race. The rising young Czech rider Kristýna Zemanová, who had been prominent early, slipped when she tried to pass Belgian champion Marion Norbert Riberolle (Crelan-Corendon) and slid into her, causing them both to come down. Norbert Riberolle stood up and then pushed Zemanová with both arms. That led her to be disqualified from the race. Zemanová lost her chain in the incident and eventually finished 11th, 2:05 behind the winner.

Norbert Riberolle was seen later lying on the course and holding her head. As reported by Sporza, the Belgian Cycling Team said in a statement that the rider had been experiencing physical discomfort and was taken to the hospital to be checked for head and neck pain. She was also said to have suffered a panic attack and chest pain during the race.