Reigning women's elite cross-country mountain bike World Champion Puck Pieterse made a big adjustment to her race calendar this week to move closer to not one, but two more World titles in a single season. The Dutch multi-discipline rider will forego the final two races on the MTB World Cup circuit to challenge elite fields in the UCI Road World Championships and the UCI Gravel World Championships.
After earning a bronze medal in the women's elite category at the Cyclocross World Championships in February, the 22-year-old had a flurry of success on the road with her Alpecin-Deceuninck road team including podiums at both Ronde van Drenthe and Trofeo Alfredo Binda and a stage win at the Tour de France Femmes. In the summer she focused on XCC and XCO races, which led her to fourth place in the Paris Olympic Games cross-country MTB race.
