The opening acts of the cyclocross season have played out and so far it is Lucinda Brand who has most consistently played the winning hand. Though the season is far from over and the competition is shifting up another notch. 

The seven-time world cyclocross champion Marianne Vos has stepped into the World Cup fray, US champion Clara Honsinger has shown she has what it takes to tackle the front of the field in Europe, the rainbow-stripe clad Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado is building form again and Sanne Cant has been pushing toward those podium steps that she once stood upon with monotonous regularity. 

Let’s take a look back at the World Cup races so far, before we turn to those ahead. 

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LOOKING BACK AT TABOR, NAMUR & DENDERMONDE

Round 1 – Tabor

In the season opener Brand quickly stamped her authority on the racing leaving behind Alvarado and coming over the line with hands aloft, something we got used to in 2020.

  1. Lucinda Brand
  2. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado
  3. Denise Betsema

Round 2 – Namur 

The US champion Clara Honsinger joined the fray and quickly heralded her arrival as a rider to be reckoned on European soil with some superb climbing.

  1. Lucinda Brand
  2. Clara Honsinger
  3. Denise Betsema

Round 3 – Dendermonde

An old school field cyclocross course, where even for the world of cyclocross the mud was laid on thick. A huge storm pre-race even left doubts about the likelihood of a start but the race went on with a modified course.

  1. Lucinda Brand
  2. Clara Honsinger
  3. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado

Vos also joined the World Cup fray in this race, a tough way to start, and ended up coming 14th.

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WHAT’S ON CYCLOCROSS: THE WORLD CUPS CONTINUE INTO 2021

World Cup Schedule

29 Nov 2020World Cup, TaborCZE          Winner: Brand
20 Dec 2020World Cup, NamurBEL          Winner: Brand
27 Dec 2020World Cup, DendermondeBEL           Winner: Brand
03 Jan 2021World Cup, HulstNED 
24 Jan 2021World Cup, OverijseBEL 

Lucinda Brand’s wins at Tabor, Namur and Dendermonde, leave her as the clear favourite, for the next rounds and of course to take out the overall World Cup standings. Brand has a considerable lead after securing 40 points at each of the first three rounds. Her nearest rival at 43 points behind is Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado and then another nine points back at 68 is Denise Betsema. That’s a big enough gap that it would take something pretty special to dislodge Brand from that top spot overall in the remaining two rounds.

Though, as the World Championships draws closer the competition is continuing to lift and there will be a field full of riders trying to make those wins even harder to come by. Alvarado and Betsema are continuing to put the pressure on, constant rival last season, Annemarie Worst was only a couple of spots shy of the podium in the last round, old rivals Cant and Vos are making a mark and new ones like Honsinger are rearing their heads. 

All in all it’s bound to be a couple of exciting rounds ahead. 

How to Watch

The UCI has delivered another handy guide to where you can find coverage below and the full broadcast guide for Hulst can also be found here.

For Australia the UCI Youtube and Facebook channel are again your best options. If you are turning to Twitter you can look to @UCI_CX and #CXWorldCup

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MEDIA ROUND UP

For this month’s media round up we want to highlight CXs and Os, a fantastic YouTube series on Wide Angle Podium that runs through some of the key course features at races and delivers an insight into the pivotal decisions that help deliver those race winning advantages. Forerunner, Like a Vos, was the key to unlocking my fascination for cross and hopefully this new series will also help win over a bunch of new converts.

It’s a great insight into the skills, courses and some superb cross history with the women’s and men’s racing covered together in this series. 

You can find the series here and below is the episode looking at Namur.

Till next time you can keep up to date with all the action by following The Women’s Race on Twitter.