Lucinda Brand set to miss some time after an infection in her hand

33-year-old Dutch cycling phenomenon, Lucinda Brand could be set for some time away from the action after a broken metacarpal bone led to an infection in her hand.

Baloise - Trek Lions manager Sven Nys says  in the podcast CROSS, “There is a picture in her hand that bothers her, anyway, but there is also a little bit of inflammation, we don't often talk about that, but we have to take great care of it." Nys explains "You could see her building up until the day of Overijse, but then we noticed: that inflammation is there now. To get rid of that, she started on antibiotics. You see that immediately. This had a real effect in Kortrijk and Hulst. Antibiotics are never good for an athlete's performance.”

With antibiotics required, Brand looks set to miss the Dublin World Cup event on December 10th. "She doesn't drive anyway, Dublin is still a question mark. If she were to scrap it, we would have a slightly longer period of time to work towards the Christmas season." Nys says. "That is a point we have to make a decision on in the coming days.”

In any case, according to Nys at least, we could be waiting until the new year for the next time we see Brand at her best. “You can see that inflammation is decreasing now. But we must continue to pay attention to the wounds, to what is happening internally in her hand, before we think about the World Cup and how she appears there in top form. If it all falls into place, she'll have it all back on track by January. But things can't go wrong now, this is a tipping point.”