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Almost a year after she last competed, former world champion Van Empel impressed on her return to the field on round 2 of the HG Cross Trophy.
Fem van Empel made her return to the cyclocross field at Saturday afternoon’s HG Cross Meulebeke almost a year after her last race, and 10 months after announcing that she was parting ways with Visma-Lease a Bike and placing her career on pause indefinitely.
Now under the FDJ United-Suez umbrella having signed with the superteam last month, Van Empel admitted to having no expectations in her competitive comeback, but at the end of a thoroughly muddy bike race around a Belgian playing field, the 24-year-old crossed the line a very promising fourth.
But most importantly, the young Dutch super-talent appeared genuinely happy to be back after her year away from professional sport.
“I’m happier than ever,” Van Empel told Sporza before the race in Meulebeke. “I had lost the joy of cycling because my body was no longer in balance. At the time, I opened up to the people closest to me. I stated then that my body was no longer capable of competing at the top level the way I wanted to.”
In recent seasons, Van Empel has become something of a dominant force in elite women’s cyclocross, a fact neatly encapsulated by her three consecutive world titles before her 23rd birthday. The story began to devolve in 2025 as Van Empel first stepped back from road racing, then started only four races in the 25-26 ‘cross season. While she’d won two of them, bringing her career tally to 50, her DNF at Koppenbergcross marked a sad end to the first high-flying chapter of Van Empel’s career as the then-23-year-old walked away to focus on herself.
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