Lucinda Brand fully lived up to pre-race expectations on a fast course at Gavere to claim her 10th win of a row of the 2025-2026 season and the 26th World Cup win of her career.
In a crash-riddled race, Brand went clear with more than half of the course to complete when closest pursuer Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) fell heavily, and the Baloise Glowi Lions leader steadily opened up her gap from there on.
By the finish, Brand led by a solid 15 seconds on up-and-coming French racer Amandine Fouquenet (Arkeá-B&B Hotels), with Pieterse putting in a tenacious comeback to claim third.
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“It feels good, of course but it was a hard day,” Brand said afterwards. “At the beginning I really searched for a good feeling on this surface and I had to change my tyres a few times – so my legs… I really had to think about how to pedal.”
How it unfolded
In freezing cold but very sunny conditions, 68 riders took off on an unusually dry, fast 14.6 kilometre course, with a major crash – the first of several – on the slowly thawing ground affecting Belgian National Champion Marion Norbert Riberolle (Crelan-Corendon) in the first lap.
Meanwhile, at the front end of the action, Amandine Fouquenet (Arkeá-B&B Hotels), already a winner at the Heusden-Zolder Superprestige race a few days back as she made a major step up this year, began setting down her favoured tactic of a hard early pace yet again.
Fouquenet was a threat that could not be ignored, and as they roared through the final obstacles of the first lap, Brand and teammate Shirin van Anrooij bridged across and quickly shed the flagging Frenchwoman. Van Anrooij then pushed into the front, with Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech), still on the hunt for a first win this season, coming into contention as well.
Marion Norbert Riberolle gets caught up in the barriers (Image credit: Getty Images)
Disaster then struck for Van Anrooij as she crashed heavily on one of the dangerously hard, frozen off-road sections, losing her chain and multiple places in the pack. Pieterse battled on alone, but the shape of the front of the race changed yet again as top favourites Brand overcame her slow early start with a couple of bike changes to move into the lead alongside her fellow-Dutchwoman.
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Downing a gel as she blasted across the second lap, Pieterse knew she’d need all the strength she could get to remain with Brand. But on the perilously fast course, Pieterse then crashed on a fast downhill just after attacking, leaving Brand out in front and alone yet again.
Pulling out a lot of time on the descents, Pieterse battled back into a chase group of three, also containing Fouquenet. But Brand was seemingly unstoppable, already taking 14 seconds on her closest rivals as she completed three laps of six and reached the race’s mid-way point alone.
Amandine Fouquenet (Image credit: Getty Images)
That margin had only increased by one second a lap later, yet after the crash-strewn start, Brand’s focus by this point had presumably switched to racing more conservatively and ensuring she kept in control. Pieterse tried her utmost to stay in contention, closing in on Fouquenet for a spectacular, if ineffective, battle for second. But with one lap to go as her two chasers began thinking more about the podium and keeping some strength back, Brand’s advantage had stretched out again to a race maximum of 21 seconds.
Only a major disaster could stop Brand from claiming her sixth World Cup win of the season by this point, but that didn’t happen. Rather, by taking things notably cautiously on the now fast-thawing course but piling on the pressure on the ascents, she had more than enough time to celebrate and high-five the crowd as she reached the finish, her crushing domination of this year’s cyclo-cross more than intact for at least one more major race.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) (Image credit: Getty Images)Results
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