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Lucinda Brand (Baloise Trek Lions) claimed the 50th elite win of her cyclocross career and her first victory of the season with a dominant start-to-finish display at the UCI World Cup in Dublin, attacking away on the opening lap and never being caught.
Overall World Cup leader Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado (Alpecin-Deceuninck) had to settle for second after she tried to chip away at Brand’s advantage but couldn’t make contact before the six laps were up, stifled in her chase by small mistakes such as getting her bars caught in the side netting.
Brand’s cyclocross season had a delayed start after she suffered a shoulder injury on the road at the Simac Ladies Tour in September that required surgery, but today she showed she was definitely back to her best and fully recovered.
The former World Champion was supreme throughout, only extending her gap throughout the 55-minute effort to an eventual winning margin of 38 seconds over Alvarado in second and 45 seconds on Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) in third.
“It was a fight in the first lap in the start and after the difficult section I had a little gap so I thought I’d see how I went and I kept the gap although it was not easy,” said Brand. “I felt super strong so it was great.”
The rain began to fall right as the riders took the start, but Brand showed no signs of fatigue from yesterday’s X2O Trofee round in Kortrijk, setting the early marker on the first lap and getting a gap on Alvarado and the rest behind with a prolonged powerful surge.
Alvarado would chip away at the deficit in the overall leader’s jersey but by the end of the third lap, Brand’s advantage was still out at 12 seconds. Her progress was stifled as she went wide around a corner and caught her handlebars in some netting, forcing her to dismount and lose valuable time to Brand.
From this moment it was clear that Brand’s gap was insurmountable and that they were merely competing for the podium places…
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