🏆 One last KM and a first pro victory! Congrats Puck Pieterse! 🏆 Un dernier kilomètre pour une première victoire professionnelle ! Et quelle première ! Bravo Puck Pieterse ! #TDFF2024 | #WatchTheFemmes | @GoZwift
Puck Pieterse: "To win here, in a sprint against Demi, is really a dream come true"
CyclingWednesday, 14 August 2024 at 16:28
Puck Pieterse is an absolute superstar of cycling in the making. The Dutch rider is one of the top Cyclocross and Mountain Bike riders in the world but if there was still any doubt of her abilities on the road, that was shrugged off today as she beat none other than Demi Vollering in one of the toughest stages of the Tour de France Femmes.
“The last few days I had really good legs. Today I didn’t even feel my legs. It went really well. To win here, in a sprint against Demi, is really a dream come true,” Pieterse said in a post-race interview. Pieterse came to the Tour in search of stage wins and this would be more likely in the hilly days. Today, racing into Liège, the riders found plenty short and sharp climbs including the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons. The Fenix-Deceuninck rider was able to match the attack of Katarzyna Niewiadoma which would make the split when it came to the fight for the stage win.
The trio headed into the final kilometer united and with a comfortable gap over the rest, and despite her young age Pieterse knew how to play this finale. “I knew they were going for the general classification. I’m just here for the stage, so I could play poker. I knew that Kasia [Niewiadoma] was going to attack and that Demi was going to close it," she explains. Sure enough this was the case.
But Pieterse admits she made a mistake in the run-up to the finish line. "I went quite early in the sprint, but I've never been here before, so I didn't know where the line was," she says. In the end it was a photo-finish finale with the yellow jersey, but she was announced the winner a few minutes after the end of the stage. "We had to wait a long time for the result. I don't know how I did this. I live for this".
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024
- Pointless reporting. They are rivals, each tries their way to get their best result, with or without collaboration. As long as it’s all fair, why even report riders feelings about such stuff (yes I know, lack of other news). Anyone riding races will go through dozens of moments per race where they get emotional about the way someone else rides or takes advantage or doesn’t collaborate or more, it is natural, it is justified, it is NOT newsworthy!Mistermaumau17-11-2024
- I like that you can see you actually replied to you and not just to the same thread. :)Sweep16-11-2024
- I quite like it too, but it seems to be allergic to paragraphs.mikebeast16-11-2024
- A good analogy is germane; a bad analogy isn't. You could say the strength of an analogy can be judged by its germaneness. I thought the bank account analogy was rather germane indeed!mikebeast16-11-2024
- I do like the comment section better.Sweep16-11-2024
- You could also ask is CO just being used as a smoke screen to mask / explain illegal PED useSweep16-11-2024
- Where does one get the money to run this site and pay journalist for their travel and writing?Sweep16-11-2024
- Just wanted to point out that no where in this technical article did it state that carbon monoxide was either toxic or poisonous. In fact Fin Major actually repeated what I stated about CO in the comments of another article.Sweep16-11-2024