{"id":399616,"date":"2026-01-30T23:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T23:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399616\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T23:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T23:29:08","slug":"a-dream-comeback-shirin-van-anrooij-shines-at-home-cyclo-cross-world-championships-opener-after-last-years-iliac-artery-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399616\/","title":{"rendered":"A dream comeback: Shirin van Anrooij shines at home Cyclo-cross World Championships opener after last year’s iliac artery nightmare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shirin van Anrooij<\/a> celebrated a gold medal with her Netherlands teammates in the mixed team relay<\/a> at the opening day of the UCI Cyclo-Cross World Championships<\/a> in Hulst, and she is curious about the result she can produce in the elite women\u2019s race on Saturday.<\/p>\n

A blistering penultimate lap by the Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Poetsbureau Lions rider put her country into the lead, before Tibor Del Grosso<\/a> soloed the final lap for victory.<\/p>\n

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Behind Italy finished in silver, 16 seconds back, and Belgium rounded off the podium, fighting off defending champions Great Britain after a spirited battle.<\/p>\n

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Van Anrooij is from Zeeland in the Netherlands, which is the region hosting this year\u2019s championships. The former junior and under-23 cyclo-cross world champion missed last year’s campaign and championships while recovering from iliac artery endofibrosis surgery.<\/a><\/p>\n

She has been building towards her home World Championships<\/a> and placed fifth in last weekend\u2019s cyclo-cross World Cup concluding round at Hoogerheide.<\/p>\n

Van Anrooij will be competing as an elite in Saturday’s Cyclo-Cross World Championships for the first time after progressing from the under-23 ranks.<\/p>\n

The event got off to a perfect start for her as she proudly posed for pictures with her local fans after winning her latest rainbow jersey and gold medal.<\/p>\n

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Van Anrooij finished third in the Cyclo-Cross World Cup round at Hulst three years ago, but many changes have been made ahead of Worlds.<\/p>\n

Reflecting after racing one lap of the course in her leg of the six-rider mixed team relay, Van Anrooij said, \u201cIt\u2019s just a really hard lap, especially the second part, which is also very heavy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really need to spare some for the last lap. Of course, it’s different if it’s one lap of a full effort, instead of the 50 minutes tomorrow (in the elite women\u2019s).<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think my conclusion is mainly – it’s just a very nice course.”<\/p>\n

After returning to cyclo-cross racing this winter, Van Anrooij finished runner-up in the gruelling Cyclo-cross World Cup round at Koksijde.<\/p>\n

She is set to battle with fellow Dutch Baloise Verzekeringen-Het Poetsbureau Lions trade teammate Lucinda Brand for her second rainbow jersey of the weekend in the elite women\u2019s race at Worlds.<\/p>\n

She hopes to replicate the feeling she had during her effort in the mixed team relay again tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy legs actually felt very good today,” she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m just really looking forward to tomorrow. I’m curious. It is, of course, a very different endeavour, but at least it was a good opener. I hope I’ll have these legs again tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shirin van Anrooij celebrated a gold medal with her Netherlands teammates in the mixed team relay at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-399616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}