Multi-discipline star Puck Pieterse will swap 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 won’t solely be Pieterse’s first Grand Tour, additionally it is her first stage race at elite degree, along with her highway profession so far solely consisting of one-day occasions. However, she has introduced house a string of prime 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 end result 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’m going to experience a tour, within the Netherlands, Belgium and France. With a end on Alpe d’Huez,” Pieterse stated on the NOS talk show Studio Parijs
“I’m trying ahead to that for the time being.”
Pieterse was devastated after the mountain bike race, with the Dutch nationwide group 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”. However, Batten was rapidly 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 rapidly.
The 2024 Tour de France Femmes begins in her house nation the Netherlands on August 12, with three phases based mostly 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 prime groups finally yr’s Tour, always leaping into breakaways and chancing their fingers in opposition to the squads with a lot larger 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 all solely seven groups to web a TDFF stage win within the first two editions.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs and extra. Find out extra.
