Multi-discipline star Puck Pieterse will change her focus again to the highway and make her debut on the upcoming Tour de France Femmes, after a late puncture within the Paris Olympics cross-country mountain bike race took away an all-but-certain silver medal.
The Tour de France Femmes is not going to solely be Pieterse’s first Grand Tour, additionally it is her first stage race at elite stage, along with her highway profession up to now solely consisting of one-day occasions. Nonetheless, she has introduced house a string of high outcomes regardless of her inexperience, together with fifth at Strade Bianche final yr, sixth at her first Tour of Flanders in April and just one outcome exterior the highest 10 in the entire of 2024.
Pieterse casually introduced the information on Dutch TV after the frustration of lacking out on a medal at Élancourt Hill within the MTB occasion, the place Pauline Ferrand-Prévot took house gold for France.
“I will experience a tour, within the Netherlands, Belgium and France. With a end on Alpe d’Huez,” Pieterse mentioned on the NOS discuss present Studio Parijs
“I am wanting ahead to that in the mean time.”
Pieterse was devastated after the mountain bike race, with the Dutch nationwide staff even contemplating protesting about silver medallist Haley Batten after the American rode by way of the pit zone “with out feeding or having technical help”. Nonetheless, Batten was shortly given a wonderful however nothing extra, confirming fourth for the Dutch rider.
Turning her focus to the Tour permits Pieterse to maneuver on from the frustration shortly.
The 2024 Tour de France Femmes begins in her house nation the Netherlands on August 12, with three phases primarily based round Rotterdam for the race’s first overseas Grand Départ since its inception in 2022.
Her shut rival off-road rival, and present cyclocross World Champion, Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease A Bike) can be anticipated to make her debut on the Tour de France Femmes which begins on August 12 and runs to August 18 with the grand finale up Alpe d’Huez.
Pieterse rides for Fenix-Deceuninck on the highway, who have been one of many high groups eventually yr’s Tour, always leaping into breakaways and chancing their arms in opposition to the squads with a lot greater budgets.
Their aggressive racing ended with them touchdown a stage win on the fourth day in Rodez, as Yara Kastelijn survived within the breakaway and made Fenix-Deceuninck one in every of solely seven groups to internet a TDFF stage win within the first two editions.
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