Another run at the Tour, MTB World Championships and debut at Ardennes - busy year ahead for Puck Pieterse
Cycling
While in 2023, Puck Pieterse added only two road starts to her records (one which was impressive 5th place at Strade Bianche Donne), she already got a taste of the fully-fledged road campaign last year. Well, the latter might be still a bit of an overstatement as the Fenix-Deceuninck rider only completed 13 race days on the road, but in her every start, Pieterse left behind a lasting impression.
Her strong performances at the spring classics such as 3rd places in Drenthe and at the Trofeo Binda, 5th at Dwars Door Vlaanderen and 6th at Tour of Flanders weren't even as much of a surprise, but it was at the Tour de France Femmes where she truly shone. A stage win and consistent performances in the early mountain stages almost saw her briefly become the race's overall leader, but eventually she dropped to 11th overall. That was enough to secure a white jersey for the best young rider.
And that was not even the highlight of her season as just two weeks later, Pieterse sold her great form with world title in the Olympic mountain bike discipline (XCO), taking revenge for the Olympic Games disappointment (came fourth after untimely puncture). The plan this year is no less than to defend that jersey.
For the rest of the 2025 season, you can see below that Pieterse will ride a mostly similar programme to last year's. Her debut at the moment is scheduled for the Dwars Door Vlaanderen, but it's not written in the stone that we won't see the 22-year-old in action sooner than at the start of April.
Schedule of Puck Pieterse for 2025:
- Dwars Door Vlaanderen - April 2
- Tour of Flanders - April 6
- Amstel Gold Race - April 20
- La Fleche Wallonne Femmes - April 23
- Liege-Bastogne-Liege Femmes - April 27
- MTB World Cup (Nove Mesto) - May 23-25
- Tour de France Femmes - July 26 - August 3
- MTB World Championships (Crans Montana) - September 13-15
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Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- lol yeahmij08-11-2026
- I know, their headlines can be so misleading. Pidcock had a great season with 5 wins. and some solid 2nds. no reason to take away from that with a fake headline.mij08-11-2026
- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
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