Lucinda Brand put her recent struggles at the National Championships behind her with a vengeance to claim the victory in trademark decisive solo style at the Benidorm round of the World Cup series.
Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado eventually clinched second, some 10 seconds back, after a prolonged struggle against French duo Amandine Fouquenet, finally third, and recently crowned National Champion Célia Gery.
Brand, though, was simply unstoppable, putting her relatively disappointing third place in the Dutch Nationals behind Alvarado - the first time she'd finished outside the top two this winter - behind her with her 18th win and eighth World Cup of the 25-26 season.
How it unfolded
A sunny day in Benidorm's fast but grippy six laps of a course through the Foietes city park and the El Moralet forest park was hit early on by a crash, but the main favourites moved to the front all the same. The ever-aggressive Amandine Fouquenet, one of the top names of the season, was amongst them, forcing the pace on the first lap, although the speed meant the gaps were minimal at the head of the race, with Shirin van Anrooij heading a small group of chasers less than five seconds behind.
Come the uphill drag to the finish, Fouquenet's advantage was minimal, and on the second lap, there was the first of multiple changes of leaders as Brand dragged a four-rider group clear, containing Blanka Vas, Célia Géry and Fouquenet, with Alvarado chasing hard behind. Try as she might, though, Alvarado was not favoured by the only partially dry course and it was only when Kristyna Zemanová bridged across that seven riders regrouped on the front.
Zemanová then promptly launched a huge attack on the third lap, the Czech National Champion pulling Vas with her. But the course was so fast that the gaps remained minimal yet again and as the race reached the mid-way point there were still the same seven early movers loosely grouped ahead and very much in contention: Zemanová, Vas, Géry, Fouquenet, Van Anrooij, Alvarado, and Brand.
However, that all changed dramatically when Brand made a sustained acceleration on lap three, and while Fouquenet and National Champion Géry could shadow her, they could only do so very loosely. Brand was constantly making the running, making the most of the technical sections and cleverly biding her time to go for it until the half-way point when a break would prove too hard to get back, even on such a fast course.
Fouquenet did her best to maintain some resistance, and a rapidly recovering Alvarado was closing in on Géry, the more unevenly performing of the French duo of chasers. By lap 4, though, Brand had an 11-second advantage on Alvarado, with Fouquenet and Géry latching onto the Dutchwoman's back wheel.
Brand, though, was in a class of her own, steadily holding the gap and keeping a rough double-digit margin. The way the French riders kept close to Alvarado despite her determined pursuit, too, for nearly two laps spoke volumes about Brand's superiority, too. Then an error on an off-camber section plunged Alvarado to the back of the group, and despite her gutsy ride, she faded notably yet again, only fully recovering in the finale - by which time the battle for the win was long gone.
By the end of lap 5, Brand's advantage had stretched to 19 seconds and was impervious to the battle behind her, making it clear that her recent difficult Dutch National Championships were very much a thing of the past. The Benidorm course might have been redesigned radically for 2026, but on the final lap, there was no stopping the Dutch star all the same, as she roared home one better than her second place in 2025, at the end of a race she had made and shaped to her choosing.
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