Van Den Brand wins Oostmalle

Winning the last race of your career is always going to be good - but if all your competitors pay tribute to you and you beat the current Word Champion, it must be absolutely fantastic.

Daphny Van Den Brand: a great race, a great season and a spectacular career
(image credit: Thomas Ducroquet CC BY-SA 3.0)

Daphny Van Den Brand will therefore be celebrating tonight, because this is precisely what happened to her today at Oostmalle, the final round of the GVA Trofee. First, all the riders wore their hair in pigtails (see Helen Wyman here), as she has always done in races, to show tribute; and then she beat none other than Marianne Vos (who was in this race, despite the dodgy start list we'd seen which said she wasn't!). The home-made pie baked for her by the Telenet-Fidea team will have been welcome too, looking as delicious as it did.

"Afterwards, I asked Marianne if she let me win," says Daphny, who will now retire from cyclo cross, "but she said I was the better rider."

Congratulations, Daphny, on a great race, a great season and a spectacular career. The cyclo cross world will miss you.

Things didn't go so well for Gabby Day - the British rider crashed early in the race and was taken to hospital. Get well soon, Gabby!

"@Gabby_Day
Nasty crash at the very start of todays race, taken to hospital & have had stitches in my face. Battered and bruised all over, very sore :-("

(More pigtails!)

Results:

  1.  Daphny Van Den Brand
  2.  Marianne Vos
  3.  Sanne Van Paassen
  4.  Sanne Cant  
  5.  Nikki Harris  
  6.  Sabrina Stultiens 
  7.  Arenda Grimberg  
  8.  Helen Wyman  
  9.  Pavla Havlikova  
  10.  Joyce Vanderbeken  
  11.  Amy Dombroski  
  12.  Sophie De Boer  
  13.  Nicolle De Bie Leyten  
  14.  Nikoline Hansen  
  15.  Evy Kuijpers  
  16.  Iris Ockeloen  
  17.  Ellen Van Loy  
  18.  Lana Verberne  
  19.  Karen Verhestraeten    
  20.  Nancy Bober  
  21.  Katrien Thijs  
  22.  Anja Geldhof  
  23.  Margriet Kloppenburg  
  24.  Christine Vardaros  
  25.  Katrien Vermeiren  
  26.  Nele Van Maldeghem  
  27.  Madara Furmane  
  28.  Janice Geyskens  
  29.  Marijke De Pauw  
  30.  Tine Verdeyen 
  31.  Sandie Verriest 
  32.  Caitlyn La Haye 
  33.  Maaike Lanssens 

UCI CX World Cup Liévin

Still only 24 years old, Vos seems unstoppable
(public domain image)

Marianne Vos proved that the recent swap to a Giant bike after so long on her trusty Stevens creates absolutely no impediment whatsoever to her continuing domination of women's cycling - unless, of course, she's secretly riding a Stevens in Giant's clothing - with another superb win that saw her cross the line a full 48 seconds ahead of 2nd place Daphny Van Den Brand despite a crash that left her on the ground during the race. The 24-year-old Dutch superstar fell hard enough to still feel it late on Monday: "Adrenaline: best painkiller that your body makes itself. Rode smoothly to the finish after my crash yesterday. Today, however, it stopped working," she said.

The USA's Katy Compton took 3rd place followed by Caroline Mani in 4th and British champion Helen Wyman in 5th - a promising indication of a return to firm after her results were badly affected by the virus that has plagued the European cyclo cross world since before Christmas and which kept Sanne van Paassen away from this race. Wyman is a rider who likes to show appreciation for her fans and often pens a race report offering probably the best description available of the events she enters - her Liévin report is available here. Gabriella Day - who was not at Liévin - has also come down with the chest infection, telling fans on Twitter that she is taking antibiotics to combat it.

Cyclocross Magazine has photographs of the Elite Women's and Elite Men's races.


Elite Women
1. Marianne Vos 0:39:30
2. Daphny Van Den Brand 0:48
3. Katie Compton 1:14
4. Caroline Mani 1:19
5. Helen Wyman 1:20
6. Sophie De Boer 1:50
7. Nikki Harris1:51
8. Lucie Chainel-Lefevre 2:21
9. Pavla Havlikova 2:35
10. Sabrina Schweizer 2:41
11. Sanne Cant 2:49
12. Arenda Grimberg 2:50
13. Martina Mikulaskova 2:52
14. Jasmin Achermann 2:58
15. Katerina Nash 3:03
16. Kaitlin Antonneau 3:30
17. Sabrina Stultiens 3:58
18. Christine Majerus 4:01
19. Joyce Vanderbeken 4:02
20. Anne-Fleur Kalvenhaar 4:44
21. Julie Krasniak 4:45
22. Hilde Quintens 5:02
23. Linda van Rijen 5:16
24. Reza Hormes Ravenstijn 5:27
25. Stephanie Vaxillaire-Denuit 5:37
26. Christine Vardaros 5:55
27. Cynthia Huygens 6:06
28. Katrien Thijs 6:37
29. Lise-Marie Henzelin 7:26
30. Kim Van De Steene 7:41
31. Marlene Petitgirard 0:01
32. Nancy Bober ST
33. Githa Michiels ST
34. Ayako Toyooka ST
35. Nicolle de Bie Leyten ST
36. Margriet Kloppenburg 0:02
37. Nikoline Hansen 0:03