{"id":367863,"date":"2025-12-24T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/367863\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:51:09","slug":"amandine-fouquenet-takes-her-chance-on-belgian-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/367863\/","title":{"rendered":"Amandine Fouquenet takes her chance on Belgian soil"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAfter the finish, Fouquenet did not hide her emotion. \u201cThis is the most beautiful victory of my career,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve already been French champion twice, of course. But winning in Belgium is something else entirely,\u201d she said <a href=\"https:\/\/sporza.be\/nl\/matches\/veldrijden\/superprestige-vrouwen\/2025\/superprestige-heusden-zolder-frans-kampioene-fouquenet-pakt-haar-eerste-grote-vis-in-heusden-zolder-2-belgen-in-top-6~1757930760242\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in quotes collected by Sporza<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The victory could not have come at a better time, as her future is still uncertain. The Ark\u00e9a rider has still not found a new home for the upcoming 2026 road season, as her team will no longer exist on January 1. \u201cHopefully this win helps me find a new contract. Ideally with a team where I can continue to combine road racing and cyclo-cross.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/amandine-fouquenet-victoria-ciclocross-arkea.png@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"Amandine Fouquenet victoria ciclocross arkea\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Fouquenet is the French champion, yet she does not have a team for 2026<\/p>\n<p>Mixed emotions among the contenders<\/p>\n<p>Blanka Vas, who finished second, was relieved after a difficult period earlier in the cyclocross season.  \u201cI\u2019m very happy with this second place,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter the Koppenberg [at the beginning of November] I had a tough period and skipped several races.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked about the events that disrupted the chase, Vas dismissed them as race incidents. \u201cI thought Van der Heijden would start riding, but suddenly she stopped. And I was already on my limit. regarding a shoulder-to-shoulder bump, that was a race incident. We were riding into each other in the chasing group.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For Van Alphen, however, the situation was unfair. \u201cThat phase in the corner after the second pit area wasn\u2019t clean. One of the three of us was always going to be the victim, and that ended up being Van der Heijden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hesitation amongst the chasers was the decisive factor that allowed Fouquenet to secure the victory. \u201cBlanka looked at us asking why we weren\u2019t riding, but we were thinking about the overall standings. That\u2019s how it turned into a tactical standoff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; After the finish, Fouquenet did not hide her emotion. \u201cThis is the most beautiful victory of my&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[199439,199438,64,63,199440,784,124089,199437,85],"class_list":["post-367863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-amandine-fouquenet","tag-aniek-van-alphen","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blanka-kata-vas","tag-cycling","tag-cyclocross","tag-inge-van-der-heijden","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367863","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=367863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}