Puck Pieterse hield zich lang groot. Vierde na een lekke band, maar toch de winnaars faciliteren. Daarna totaal ontdaan, maar ze breekt pas bij de eerste knuffel, van koningin Maxima. #Olympics
"I should have gotten silver today" - Olympic heartbreak for Puck Pieterse after late puncture in women's mountain bike
Mountain BikeMonday, 29 July 2024 at 09:58
They say that 4th place is the worst position to finish in the Olympic Games and in the women's mountain bike at Paris 2024, that distinction sadly fell on the shoulders of 22-year-old Dutchwoman, Puck Pieterse.
It could have been so much better for the multi-discipline star however, as although eventual gold medal winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was a clear cut above the entire field, Pieterse was looking a comfortable second and on her way to a silver medal. That was at least, until disaster struck in the form of a late puncture, dropping the Dutchwoman right back down the field. Although she worked her way back up strongly, the podium ultimately was too big of an ask for Pieterse.
"This is the first time I've had a flat tire in a mountain bike race. I can't put it into words yet, actually," a visibly emotional Pieterse reflects in her post-race interview with NOS, fighting back the tears of disappointment. "Maybe it will happen, but not at the moment."
"I rode with an extra kind of cushion in my tire and that allowed me to continue riding after the puncture. I hoped that would be enough to dive into the material post with a bit of a lead, so that I could join the rest after the wheel change," she continues, noting how sadly that plan didn't exactly go perfectly. "Then I had to come back. If the race had been one lap longer, I think I could have finished second. In terms of values, I should have just gotten silver today."
"I kept getting closer and you know that they (Haley Batten, second, and Jenny Rissveds, third, ed.) can also get a puncture or fall. You secretly hope for that, but yes, that didn't happen," Pieterse concludes her assessment. "I rode a good race otherwise. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was a lot better than me. I could live with that, so I kept fighting for second place, but oh well."
Read also
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- 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 - So he read the comments here probably :-)DareDevil17-11-2024
- Alpecin is a MVDP and sprinter's team. It is unlikely that he will get a chance there as wellabstractengineer17-11-2024
- There’s no crying in cyclocross…Crashjames17-11-2024
- Pointless reporting. They are rivals, each tries their way to get their best result, with or without collaboration. As long as it’s all fair, why even report riders feelings about such stuff (yes I know, lack of other news). Anyone riding races will go through dozens of moments per race where they get emotional about the way someone else rides or takes advantage or doesn’t collaborate or more, it is natural, it is justified, it is NOT newsworthy!Mistermaumau17-11-2024
- I like that you can see you actually replied to you and not just to the same thread. :)Sweep16-11-2024