“Puck Pieterse started far too crazy” - The tactical mistake that shaped Lucinda Brand’s World Championship win, according to Bart Wellens

Former world champion Bart Wellens did not see the elite women’s race at the 2026 UCI Cyclocross World Championships as a story of a winning attack. He saw it as a story of a race ridden incorrectly at the front, and read perfectly just behind.

The opening laps were frantic. Pace changes, accelerations, riders trying to force separation on a circuit that did not reward forcing anything. Hulst was awkward, rutted, off camber and increasingly slick as the rain arrived. It demanded patience and clean lines more than aggression.

Wellens watched Puck Pieterse expend energy early while Lucinda Brand refused to be drawn into it. “After last weekend, I had doubts about Lucinda Brand, but after two laps on Saturday afternoon, I already realised those doubts were unjustified,” Wellens writes in his post-Worlds column for Het Nieuwsblad.

Brand did not respond to the early violence of the race. She observed it. “Puck Pieterse started far too crazy. Lucinda was able to watch it.”

The reshuffle came as the course deteriorated and mistakes began to appear. Pieterse hit the ground on one of the greasiest sections of the circuit. The front of the race fractured. Riders were accelerating and braking, trying to regain rhythm on a layout that offered none.

That was where Brand changed the tempo. “After that she fully opened the gas. This was the Lucinda from the start of the season. Her tempo, making no mistakes, taking calculated risks.”

Wellens did not describe an attack. He described control. A steady lifting of pace while others were still recovering from the disorder around them.

On a course where traction disappeared without warning and ruts punished the slightest hesitation, Brand’s seated, measured riding style became decisive. Where others were fighting the bike, she was guiding it.

For Wellens, this was not just about what happened in Hulst. It was the confirmation of a season’s worth of form expressed perfectly on the biggest day. “With Lucinda, we had the deserved winner, the only one who truly deserved it based on the season.”

He saw Brand’s win as the logical conclusion of months of consistency rather than a single race-day surge.

And crucially, he framed it as an example of judgement. “Her tempo, making no mistakes, taking calculated risks.”

On a circuit that punished impulse, Brand’s restraint became her greatest weapon.

Wellens also placed Brand’s achievement in a wider historical context. “She will never become the best cyclocross rider ever because of the figure of Marianne Vos. But Lucinda has forced her place into the history books.”

The reference to Marianne Vos was not to diminish Brand, but to underline the scale of the benchmark in women’s cyclocross. Even so, Wellens was clear that Hulst confirmed Brand’s status as one of the defining riders of her era. “She is an example for the youth. I hope she continues to race cyclocross for a long time, but I especially hope that in the future she will put her experience at the service of women’s cyclocross.”

For Wellens, the rainbow jersey in Hulst was not won with a single move. It was won with patience, restraint and a precise reading of what the race demanded.

While others tried to impose themselves on the course, Brand allowed the course to decide the race for her.