Fem van Empel solos to emphatic Superprestige Boom victory

Fem van Empel (Jumbo-Visma) claimed a dominant victory at Superprestige Boom, soloing clear on the second lap to beat rival Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) by just over a minute, while Annemarie Worst (Team 777) was the best of the rest in third.

The emphatic nature of Van Empel’s win was all the more remarkable considering her relatively sluggish opening lap on a course that demanded particular thought given the treacherous conditions.

Although the course was heavy and muddy in many parts, freezing temperatures in recent days had left plenty of hardened, frosty patches in the shade, meaning that the selection of both racing lines and tyres was far from straightforward.

Van Empel fell behind early on after struggling to clip into her pedal at the start, and she then took a tumble after she had worked her way back up to the early pace-setter Pieterse.

“I just didn't have the focus,” Van Empel said of her uncertain opening to the race. “On the first lap everything went wrong. I couldn't get into my pedal, I made clumsy mistakes. The course had changed quite a bit compared to the recon, so that lap was a matter of reconnoitring it again, but I couldn't really make any progress.”

By the end of the first lap, Pieterse had a lead of eight seconds over Van Empel, with Denise Betsema and the chasers trailing by 20 seconds. At that point, the race looked set to play out as a tight duel between Van Empel and Pieterse. Instead, the race turned on a pair of errors from Pieterse on the second lap.

The first allowed Van Empel to close that eight-second deficit, and when Pieterse slipped midway through the second lap, her fellow countrywoman took full advantage. After two laps of the six, Van Empel had 20 seconds on Pieterse, while a chasing group featuring Worst, Betsema, Kata Vas and Inge van der Heijden was already almost a minute back.

The race effectively ended as a contest when Van Empel produced a supersonic third lap, stretching her advantage over Pieterse out to 48 seconds as she reached the midway point. From there, the world champion was in the happy position of managing her advantage, a task she performed expertly.

“I knew I couldn't give Puck too many seconds but I tried not to rush to make up the gap to her either, and in the end that worked,” said Van Empel, who confessed to surprise at her margin of victory.

“That's actually bizarre. I am very satisfied with how things are going. I also worked very hard for it during the week, so I'm happy that it all came out at the weekend.”

Pieterse crossed the line 1:04 behind Van Empel, and she acknowledged that the day’s winner was on another level. “I think Fem was really, really, really strong today,” she said. “Second place isn’t bad, it’s a pity that Fem was just stronger.”

Pieterse was lining out in only her third cyclocross of the winter after a busy mountain biking campaign, and she will hope for steady improvement from here until the World Championships.

“I’ve done three races now, so you could say I was back on the cyclocross feeling, but we’ll see how many races it takes,” Pieterse said. “I hope that when the World Championships comes, I’ll be better.”

There was a spirited contested for the third step of the podium, with Worst gradually outmatching Van der Heijden, while Aniek van Alphen (Cyclocross Reds) beat Bestema to fifth.

Worst’s podium spot lifts her to her to top of the Superprestige rankings ahead of Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, who was absent on Saturday due to illness. Lucinda Brand, the day’s other notable absentee, will be back in action at Sunday’s World Cup in Flamanville.

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