“This is not what I came for” – Lucinda Brand rues ‘bad day’ as favourite misses Dutch title after dominant winter

Lucinda Brand did not hide her frustration after finishing third at the Dutch National Championships in Huijbergen. After a winter in which she had dominated much of the women’s field, winning 17 of her 20 races, the pre-race favourite left without the red white blue jersey and without the feeling she had hoped for.

“This is not what I came for,” Brand said in conversation with Sporza, after she finished behind Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and Puck Pieterse, never able to recover after losing time early in the race. For Brand, the problems had already begun before the start.

“I don’t know if it had anything to do with that crash in the Kuil of Zonhoven, but I did not have a very good feeling all week,” she said.

Any hope that the race itself might change her feeling quickly faded. Brand said she struggled for confidence almost immediately. “In the first lap I had no confidence in my tyres on this course,” she said.

Cold conditions were also part of the picture, but she made clear that they were not the real issue. “I am never really great in the cold. But with good legs you can compensate for that. I did not have those today.”

As Alvarado and Pieterse moved clear at the front and the race took shape, Brand was already fighting to limit the damage rather than shape the outcome. For a rider who had looked almost untouchable at times this winter, it was a sharp contrast to the control she had shown in many recent races.

Even on a day she described as a bad one, Brand tried to look forward rather than dwell on what went wrong. “Hopefully I have now had my bad day,” she said.

With the Dutch title gone, her focus now turns to the world championships and the chance to fight for the rainbow jersey. After a season of near constant success, Huijbergen stood out as a rare moment where her legs did not match her expectations, and where winter dominance did not translate into a national crown.