Marie Schreiber finally makes fast start count and takes biggest career victory at World Cup Hulst

Marie Schreiber has the taken the victory at the latest round of World Cup action in Hulst, finally managing to hold onto the lead after one her trademark fast starts, snapping a run of Dutch World Cup winners dating back to October 2021 in the process.

In something that will come as little of a surprise to any seasoned cyclocross fan, Marie Schreiber had the fastest start of the pack, flying out the gate. More often than not though, Schreiber fades away after her blistering start, but with three laps gone in Hulst, the Team SD Worx - Protime star still held a sizeable advantage over the chasers led by Lucinda Brand, Puck Pieterse, Annemarie Worst and Inge van der Heijden.

At the end of lap 4, Schreiber's advantage was still 19 seconds, but Brand was making her move behind, starting to put pressure on the rest of the chasers and close the gap to Schreiber. As Schreiber took the bell for the final lap, her lead had been cut to just 16 seconds and Brand, now completely free of Pieterse, was absolutely flying. Schreiber though, despite visually fatiguing, was holding the gap impressively and as Brand made a mistake, unclipping momentarily, Schreiber's victory was secured.