INTERVIEW: Lucía González reflects on home European Championship performance - "In the end 10th, so happy with the race"

Lucia Gonzalez has performed at a high level at the Cyclocross European Championships 2024 held in Pontevedra achieving a very creditable 10th place as Fem Van Empel ended up taking a thrilling victory in a sprint.

Speaking to CyclingUpToDate afterward in an exclusive interview, the Basque explained that it had been a very fast race in which it was almost impossible to overtake due to the high pace and the lack of space. Nevertheless, she was very satisfied with her effort at the finish line. "A very fast race, everyone fighting for position, group race, I thought it was going to break a little more, I was behind and couldn't get through and it was a lot of start and stop and in the end tenth, happy with the race," she assessed.

The reason why perhaps he could not end up getting an even better position than that positive tenth place was that his start was not as good as he would have liked, not being able to come back to be able to fight for a hypothetical top 5. "I didn't start well at all, I was fighting for position but I didn't manage to get ahead because everyone wanted to pass and I paid for it at the end, but I'm happy," she explained.

Finally, she spoke of the great atmosphere in Pontevedra for the Spanish cyclists and did not rule out that Felipe Orts could do something important in the men's race that closed the day:

"I think we run at home, we know the circuit, the terrain if we do well, plus he dominates it very well because he is Valencian and he is better than us from the north. I think that having raced here other years gives us a plus, plus all the public, the fans, with an extra motivation."