"I'll still need Puck in the coming years" - Puck Pieterse will skip Kigali World Championships to focus on other goals

The Netherlands were always going to field an extremely strong and talented team for the women's road race in Kigali. And absence of one or two names won't change much on the fact. But having to make a do without Puck Pieterse is still a blow the national coach has to deal with. The Dutch multi-discipline queen aims to add another rainbow jersey to her mountain bike palmares and that goal has become incompatible with this year's road World Championships in Rwanda.

"It was decided in consultation to remove this World Championship from her program," Laurens ten Dam told the Dutch public broadcaster NOS.

As defending XCO world champion, Pieterse will instead fully focus on the off-road discipline in weeks coming up to the race that will take place in Crans-Montana on September 13. Two weeks ahead of Kigali road race, the schedule would become too packed. "With the Mountain Bike World Championships and everything else Puck has coming up in the near future, it became a bit much."

The 23-year-old will regardless have many more opportunities to race the Worlds and Ten Dam confirms that she'll be once again included in the plans when a fitting course is on the menu. "Of course I'm disappointed, but ultimately, I'll still need Puck in the coming years."