Superprestige Niel: Alvarado scores a dominant solo victory

Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (Alpecin-Deceuninck) scored her second win of the 2023-24 cyclocross season, soloing to victory at the third round of the Superprestige series in Niel.

The win is the second in a row of the Superprestige series for the Dutchwoman after she won in Ruddervoorde two weeks ago. She left the rest of the field behind on the opening lap of the extremely muddy race, holding her advantage to the finish.

Behind Alvarado, Aniek van Alphen and Annemarie Worst rounded out the podium for the Cyclocross Reds team over a minute back. Worst had held second place for the bulk of the race before a late charge from Van Alphen saw her vault into second.

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"It was quite tough. We didn't have many laps, which shows how slowly we raced around the course," Alvarado said after winning, according to WielerFlits. "But I still enjoyed it. The sliding, not seeing where you are going – I thought that was cool."

"I don't know what happened behind me, but I was gone and had no choice but to continue. I did that too. The gap also became large quite quickly. Then it was important to ride at my own pace. There were still some hiccups and glitches here and there, but I managed to keep it straight."

"At one point it was crawling on the bike. It was really tough. You rode into ruts and then you had to hope that you stayed in them, instead of sliding into the ribbon left or right."

It was Marie Schreiber (SD Worx) who enjoyed the best start to the four-lap race, opening a small gap early on. However, Alvarado came across and then went solo in the lead during the second half of the lap.

By the start of lap two, the 25-year-old was already 14 seconds up on Worst, who had moved up into second, with no other riders within half a minute of the lead.

Alvarado only increased her advantage on the second lap, racing off to what would be a dominant victory and moving a minute clear of Worst. Further back, a battle raged over the remaining podium spots as Van Alphen and Crelan-Corendon duo Sanne Cant and Manon Bakker fought amongst themselves.

Van Alphen would prove the strongest of that chasing pack, moving away from the Crelan duo and across to her teammate Worst. She'd take advantage of a mistake by Worst to grab second place, pushing on to cross the line solo at 1:04 down. Worst rounded out the podium at 1:21, while Bakker came home fourth at 1:40.

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