{"id":805914,"date":"2026-10-17T20:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/805914\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T20:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T20:56:13","slug":"im-happier-than-ever-fem-van-empel-4th-in-comeback-race-after-year-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/805914\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m happier than ever’ \u2013 Fem van Empel 4th in comeback race after year off"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'I'm<\/p>\n

\"EscapeCollective<\/p>\n

Members Only<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Kit<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now under the FDJ United-Suez umbrella having signed with the superteam<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

But most importantly, the young Dutch super-talent appeared genuinely happy to be back after her year away from professional sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happier than ever,\u201d Van Empel told Sporza<\/a> 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, then started only four races in the 25-26 ‘cross season. While she’d won two of them, bringing her career tally to 50<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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Nope\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members Only Almost a year after she last competed, former world champion Van Empel impressed on her return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-805914","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\/805914","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=805914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}