Lucinda Brand dreaming of second Cyclocross World Championship title: "I’m closer at the moment than I was last year"
CyclocrossFriday, 01 December 2023 at 17:00
Since making her cyclocross return in Dendermonde on the 12th of November, Lucinda Brand has acquitted herself extremely well, finishing on the podium of all five of the races she's ridden, winning one.
This form has given the 34-year-old hope of replicating her 2021 feat of winning the Cyclocross World Championships. “Of course that’s still in the mind to fight for,” she tells Velo from the UCI World Cup round in Dublin, in which Brand was victorious.
Defeating the likes of Annemarie Worst and Denise Betsema back in 2021, if Brand is to triumph this time, it will be against the next generation. “It is definitely not easy. They’re young, they’re talented, they have good technical capabilities," says Brand of stars such as Fem van Empel, Puck Pieterse and Shirin van Anrooij.
“To be honest I’ve been doubting a lot if I ever will be able to really fight with them [the younger rivals] again. It’s just hard. It also becomes a fight with yourself too. So yeah, there have been a lot of doubts. And I’m happy that I can put away the doubts at the moment,” she concludes. “If you look back to when I was last winning a cyclocross race, it’s quite a long time with some injuries in between. It’s great to be really back.”
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- I counted 16 riders under 24 out of 43 that started. Once was only 16 ! Two of the top riders are Zoe and Schreiber and both under 23 yet that have done 50 min races in the past with the elites so I think it's just bad clock management. Let them race 50 freakin' minutes! One more lap could have made a big dffierence most times in the podium and winner.frieders319-11-2024
- He needs to finish out his contract and then go hit MTB and Cross/Gravel really hard, that's where his heart is.awp18-11-2024
- Pidcock is starting to sound like Froome now.Sweep18-11-2024
- I think this was because there were junior women in the race. If a race has junior women am pretty sure it has to be less than 45 minutes. I believe a rule is coming in for next season that will fine organisers that don't put on a junior women's race a fine equivalent to the prize money. So fingers crossed we should see more longer elite and junior women's races from next season.NorrisHippocampe18-11-2024
- Of course he CAN. Big salary in cycling is not when you win but when they talk about you (and your team / sponsors). For every news about Jonas, MVdP or Wout there are 10 times more(!) news about Pidcock (like everyday for last 2 months?). Since cycling is advertising sport not competitive sport (in terms of from money comes from) Pidcock is winner and GOAT - change my mind. ;-)averagecyclist18-11-2024
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024