"My biggest dream is to win a Grand Tour one day" - Fem van Empel

Fem van Empel is only 20 years old but has throughout the past months been at the very top of the cyclocross world, winning the European Championships, all four World Cup races and all but one race throughout her entire season so far. However, she aims even higher, and on the road, she admits.

"My biggest dream is to win a Grand Tour one day," she said in a recent interview. "But I don't know if my body can ever handle that. The future will show where my ambitions will really lie." Although having some results on the road such as a third place at the under-23 European championships this year, it is off-road that she has shown her true talent. She has placed herself as the most dominant and main figure in the women's cyclocross field so far, with no apparent weak spots. 

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"I think it will be good for my development in the long run to combine many disciplines. Mountain biking is very playful. It is then again very good for the cross. Also for my road skills it wouldn't hurt to ride the mountain bike now and then," she continues, teasing her presence on MTB such as her compatriot and similar talent Puck Pieterse.

“I don't know where I'll end up on the road. After my win in Val di Sole in December, I had the choice of teams," she said, eventually choosing Jumbo-Visma, the team she will represent from the 1st of January together with Marianne Vos, a rider who she is being compared to often.

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"It was already very difficult to make the right choice. I doubted for a long time between SD Worx and Jumbo-Visma, that it eventually became. But for me the road is one big voyage of discovery that starts somewhere in June. I still have to learn everything there," the Dutch supertalent continued.

“I'm just Fem and I hope to come into the picture this way. I prefer not to be compared with anyone. Although that is nice at first sight, of course, but still. I get a lot of nice comments on social media, but I also read the negative ones," she reveals.

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Exposure to bad comments ends up being part of the huge amount of exposure the Dutch rider has, but she talks about how she handles it: “Somehow you remember those more than the positive ones, which of course is a shame. It comes from outsiders. I have to learn to deal with it. I am also getting better and better, but of course it is difficult."

Her presence further illustrates the current dominance of the Dutch riders in the women's field. “But because the Dutch ladies are doing very well, I notice that the NOS is getting more and more interested in cyclo-cross," she is aware, being a big part of the picture.

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"People from my neighborhood are also becoming more and more interested, but here it is still much more alive," she said of Belgium.

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