{"id":343077,"date":"2025-12-12T12:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343077\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T12:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:03:08","slug":"puck-pieterse-all-in-for-this-years-cross-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343077\/","title":{"rendered":"Puck Pieterse: All in for this year\u2019s \u2019cross season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Puck Pieterse will line up in Namur on Sunday for her first \u2018cross of the winter, ending weeks of speculation about when the multi-discipline star would re-enter the mud. Like <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/the-other-crossers-are-just-as-excited-for-van-der-poels-return-as-you-expect\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mathieu van der Poe<\/a>l, she has been juggling the road, mountain biking and \u2019cross at the highest level \u2014 but this winter, only one ambition drives her: finally winning the elite world title.<\/p>\n<p>The outline of her season had been a mystery. Apart from a brief hint on Strava, Pieterse kept her schedule quiet until after a training camp in Spain with riders from Alpecin \u2013 Deceuninck and Felix \u2013 Deceuninck. (Soon to both be co-sponsored by Canadian company, Premier Tech.)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe tried to make the best of it,\u201d she said to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wielerflits.nl\/nieuws\/puck-pieterse-komende-weken-wordt-crossen-weer-even-mijn-belangrijkste-discipline\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wielerflits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Good weather helped. \u201cYou really don\u2019t want to go riding somewhere it\u2019s cold all week,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Return to competition<\/p>\n<p>Her last race was the mountain bike world championships in mid-October, so Namur will be a hard restart. \u201cThe plan was to see how things felt in training camp, and then decide. I can confirm I\u2019ll start \u2014 so it should be good,\u201d she said. With no overall series to chase this winter, Pieterse is choosing races more freely, aiming to hit her peak at the world championships.<\/p>\n<p>Hulst, The Netherlands is the site of this year\u2019s worlds, and she\u2019s done well there in the past. While she won\u2019t call it her \u201cbest chance yet,\u201d the Dutch rider admits the course suits her natural rhythm. \u201cThose banks, the technical bits \u2014 it\u2019s a course I really enjoy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Starting alongside teammates Van der Poel and Tibor Del Grosso at Namur wasn\u2019t a coordinated team plan, she insisted \u2014 just timing. She wanted to race there anyway:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is one of the most beautiful courses of the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for expectations? The last three seasons I\u2019ve been able to fight for podiums and wins. I expect the same. Mostly, I just hope to enjoy it and confirm the form is there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And though she switches disciplines smoothly, she insists cyclocross still matters. Once she\u2019s racing, it becomes her main focus. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t enjoy it,\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019d skip it and just aim for the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Puck Pieterse will line up in Namur on Sunday for her first \u2018cross of the winter, ending weeks&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[190155,64,63,784,77973,165117,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-2025-2026-uci-cx-world-cup","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","13":"tag-puck-pieterse","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}