Puck Pieterse solos to victory at snowy Val di Sole World Cup

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Puck Pieterse headed up an Alpecin-Deceuninck in the snow of Val di Sole as the 20-year-old soloed to her fifth win of the season and third at a UCI World Cup.

She led home by 44 seconds from teammate and former world champion Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado after jumping away from her competition early in the six-lap race.

Manon Bakker (Crelan-Fristads) rounded out the podium at 1:26 down to make it a Dutch one-two-three. She had the beating of home favourite Silvia Persico (FAS-Valcar), who fell victim to crashes and chain drops several times during the race, including in the closing stages as she battled Bakker for third.

"Luckily I didn't crash too hard today," Pieterse said after the race. "There were a few points that were very slippery. I think everyone made mistakes.

"Fortunately I was able to unleash my power in most places through the lap. I also found more grip after I did more laps. I knew which spots I could ride through and where I couldn't. But some corners got slippery, that's for sure."

The race was overshadowed by a heavy crash from 2021 Val di Sole winner and World Cup leader Fem van Empel (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal). The 20-year-old, who had also fallen in the pre-race warm-up, crashed on the second lap of the race and was taken away on a stretcher.

It was feared that she had suffered a major injury, possibly a leg break, but team directeur sportif Tom De Kort later reassured Sporza that wasn't the case and that she was able to support herself standing up.

At the end of the first lap, Italian champion Persico headed the race along with Pieterse and Alvarado, while Van Empel was forced to chase after a slower start. However, her race would quickly come to an end after a painful crash.

That left her rivals, and Pieterse in particular, to push on to contest victory. While much of the field fell victim to crash and slides in the snow and ice in northern Italy, Pieterse seemed impervious to the conditions and avoided major mistakes.

By the midway point of the race she was 20 seconds out front and looking well on the way to another win, adding to her victories in Hulst and Overijse.

Behind her, the battle between Alvarado and Persico played out with the Italian making several errors in the second half of the race. She hit the deck and suffered from chain drop problems on several occasions, eventually falling away from Alvarado and into a battle for third place.

In the end, as Pieterse and Alvarado finished solo in their first and second positions, the fight for third came down to the final corners of the race. Bakker was hunting down Persico and eventually caught her rival after several more minor errors committed by the Italian.

Running into the cambered penultimate corner of the race, Bakker, who had run most of the race with a broken shoe, managed to edge ahead around the outside of Persico, who struggled to slow down and fell while trying to avoid contact. 

Bakker stayed upright, however, and rode on to third. It was up to Persico to hold off Maghalie Rochette (Specialized-Feedback Sports) by centimetres in the closing sprint to keep fourth place.

With another World Cup win, Pieterse remains in second in the season rankings, though with 265 points she's still some way down on Van Empel with six wins and 330 points. Alvarado is third overall at 182 points.

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