Van den Brand Takes Third European Title, Förster Surprises in Juniors

van Paassen and Van Den Brand fighting in Frankfurt. © Bart Hazen

by Bart Hazen

Dutch Daphny van den Brand has won the third European Cyclocross Championships in her career. In Frankfurt am Main, Germany, van den Brand was the best over her compatriot Sanne van Paassen and Britain’s Helen Wyman. Hanka Kupfernagel, Pavla Havlikova, Sophie de Boer, Jasmin Achermann, Christel Ferrier-Bruneau, Caroline Mani and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot completed the top ten.

From the start, Britain’s Helen Wyman, Dutch riders Sanne van Paassen and Daphny van den Brand, and home rider Hanka Kupfernagel broke clear from the 26-strong women’s field.
In the final part of the race, Kupfernagel was the first who dropped off the break due to the hard pace set by the two Dutch riders, followed by Helen Wyman. In the final lap van Paassen had her gear mechanism falter on the stairs, and van den Brand was able to create a gap which was enough to take her third title, matching Hanka Kupfernagel’s record.

“Three titles. As many titles as Kupfernagel. I’ll come back in Lucca [Italy] next year to try to win for a fourth time and become the lone recordholder,” said van den Brand. “It was very tough. Sanne van Paassen tried a few times to drop me, but I luckily could hang on. I wasn’t able to get rid of her either. Luckily for me, Sanne made a mistake and I could profit from it.”

Sanne van Paassen was a little disillusioned. “It’s a pity to loose a race this way. I forgot to change gears before the stairs, and my mechanism faltered. I couldn’t close the gap after that on Daphny.”

Helen Wyman, last week’s winner of the Koppenberg, showed her excellent form once again with a third place. “I thought I could do better after last week’s win on the Koppenberg. The two Dutch riders were very strong, it was the two of them against me. They deserved the top two steps of the podium. For the next weeks I will do my best to win more races. I want to do well in the World Cups and the World Championships.”

Lars Förster Surprising Junior European Champion
Swiss Lars Förster is the surprising Junior European champion. After an exciting race, he was a little faster than Czech Jakub Skala and French Quentin Jaurequi. Kevin Bouvard, Laurens Sweeck, Jaap de Man, Federico Zurlo, Fabien Doubey, Michael Vanthourenhout and Diether Sweeck completed the top 10.

The race was very fast and the Swiss, Czech and Italian riders took control early on. Halfway through, Förster broke clear with Czech Vojtech Nipl. They created a small gap on a chasing group with Laurens Sweeck, Michael Vanthourenhout, Jakub Skala and Quentin Jaurequi.

In the final round, Nipl dropped off the break and Förster was able to keep his small gap to take his first European title. In the sprint for second, Skala was the best over Jaurequi and Bouvard.

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