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
"It's just very cruel. So unfair" - Dutch analyst reacts with grief to Puck Pieterse's Olympic mountain bike heartbreak
Mountain BikeMonday, 29 July 2024 at 14:45
Puck Pieterse narrowly missed out on claiming a first Olympic medal in her burgeoning career on Sunday afternoon, finishing 4th in the women's mountain bike race, as home crowd favourite Pauline Ferrand-Prevot took the gold medal in Paris.
Whilst the French star was clearly the strongest on the day, Pieterse had settled into a comfortable second place and looked set for the silver medal. As the talented Dutch youngster would have begun dreaming of the medal ceremony however, disaster struck in the form of an untimely puncture, with Pieterse slipping back down the field as a result. Although she managed to work her way back up to 4th, the podium and the medals were ultimately out of reach.
"The word that comes to mind: it's just very cruel. So unfair," reacts ex-pro turned cycling analyst Niels Zonneveld via the In Het Wiel podcast. "She was just consolidating, because gold was no longer in the cards, she took very few risks, Ferrand-Prévot was too good. The lead was so big on the rest, it was really just a matter of catching up."
"After the finish I followed her, she first rode to the winner to congratulate her. Then the numbers two and three. Then she went to the mixed zone , in control. There was Irene Schouten. And she said: 'Oh, in four years you'll have another chance,'" Zonneveld continues, praising Pieterse's maturity. "That's when she really broke down, and the realization hit her. Four years... Four years! Do you know how long that is? This could very well have been her best chance and then she had to cry really hard. Then the realization hit her from one moment to the next. She then said to the press officer: 'I want to get out of here.' Then she also realized that the Games only come once every four years. She's still young, but you just don't know how careers go."
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