A Belgian title and a 1st cx win of the year.

While our elite riders are preparing the start of their season for Tour Down Under in Australia and Anya Louw and Sarah Gigante have done a very strong job at the Australian Nationals, our juniors competed at the Belgian track Nationals this past weekend. 

Auke De Buysser took 5 golden medals home this winter with help from her teammate Luca Vierstraete. Auke is one of our youngest promising Belgian riders from our project and showed her fast legs at the tracks from Gent and Heusden-Zolder. She won this weekend the omnium, an Olympic discipline.

“I didn’t expect that I would win with such a big advantage this weekend. It is also my 5th National title this winter and that is even more than I dreamed of. I took some time off in December as I got ill, but I think that was good to start January fresh. Next week I will do Nationals cyclo-cross and I hope to get there also a podium spot”.

Mirre Knaven took the win in Vorden, a National cross race in The Netherlands, where Ilse Pluimers took the second place. Annemiek van Vleuten was one of the other competitors and was impressed by the level of our riders. In the first lap, at the estate of ‘Castle Vorden’, Mirre took the lead with Ilse in her wheel. After the second lap, Mirre dropped her teammate to cross  the finish line solo, after 45 min, as the winner.

“I am very pleased with this win as I was a bit dissapointed that I couldn’t compete at the World cup Zonhoven. This makes it a lot easier. The course was very fast and I could keep a high pace the whole race. The form is good and I am curious what I can do next week at the Nationals”.