Puck Pieterse forgoes Rwanda Road Worlds to focus on title defense at Mountain Bike World Championships in Switzerland

Puck Pieterse of Netherlands races at the 2024 UCI Road World Championships in Zurich (Image credit: Getty Images)

U23 road world champion Puck Pieterse is no longer on the start list for the Netherlands at the UCI Road World Championships, as she has withdrawn from the elite women’s lineup scheduled for September 21-28 in Kigalli, Rwanda.

Pieterse, who turned 24 in May, was confirmed two weeks ago to be part of a star-studded seven-rider Dutch roster that includes three-time road race champion Marianne Vos and two-time road race champion Anna van der Breggen, as well as Demi Vollering, who had silver medals from past Worlds in both the road race and time trial.

The reigning women’s U23 road world champion will now solely focus on defending her mountain bike world title in the elite women’s cross-country event, taking place on September 13 in Crans-Montana.

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«With the Mountain Bike World Championships and everything else Puck has coming up in the near future, it became a bit much. It was decided in consultation to remove this World Championship from the program,» Laurens ten Dam, women’s national team coach, told Dutch media on Thursday, first reported by NOS.

«Of course I’m disappointed, but ultimately, I’ll still need Puck in the coming years.»

Replacing Pieterse on the roster is Riejanne Markus, who finished just behind compatriot Marianne Vos, the duo going eighth and ninth, at last year’s Road Worlds in Zürich.

A year ago Pieterse pulled on a rainbow jersey at a road championships as the women’s U23 gold medalist. While she finished 13th in the 154km road race, the 22-year-old saved enough riding with Dutch teammate Mischa Bredewold to finish ahead of Australia’s Neve Bradbury and win the last U23 title in a race mixed with the elite field.

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Her road title came just two weeks after she made history as the first Dutch woman to win an elite women’s XCO Mountain Bike world title. At last year’s MTB Worlds in Andorra, Pieterse soloed to the elite women’s XCO victory, riding 59 seconds ahead of Dutch teammate Anne Terpstra. With the XCC races at the same venue, she finished fourth in that event, just four seconds off the podium.

Pieterse earned a bronze medal at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships to start 2025 and then dominated the spring Classics, including one week in April where she won La Flèche Wallonne Féminine and finished on the podium at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Amstel Gold Race. In July, she earned three top 10s at the Tour de France Femmes for her Fenix-Alpecin road team.

After finishing the nine-day stage race on August 3, she made an immediate transfer back to the mountain bike, finishing 10th in the XCO World Cup round at Andorra a week later.

The multi-discipline rider is now confirmed to race at the Les Gets, France round of the Mountain Bike World Cup series later this month. So far this season on the MTB World Cup circuit, she has XCC wins at three races and two XCO victories, winning both disciplines in Austria and Italy. She is ranked fifth in the XCO World Cup standings headed to Les Gets.

The Dutch National Federation has had a busy time this week with announcements, also confirming that former elite men’s road world champion Mathieu van der Poel would not compete at the Rwanda Worlds. Like his compatriot Pieterse, he will also focus on a cross-country title at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Switzerland, and will line up at Les Gets as well. Van der Poel has won world titles in road, gravel and cyclocross and is looking to add his first for MTB.

This year’s UCI Mountain Bike Cross-country Olympic World Championships begin September 11 with the Mixed Team Relay, and hold junior, U23 and elite races for men and women from September 12-14. The Cross-country Short Track events will be held in Zermatt on September 8-9.