{"id":652177,"date":"2025-12-24T09:01:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652177\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T09:01:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:01:32","slug":"dutch-national-coach-reflects-on-fem-van-empels-temporary-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/652177\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch national coach reflects on Fem van Empel\u2019s temporary retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite Van Empel\u2019s absence, Dutch riders continue to dominate cyclocross. At the UCI World Cup Koksijde, the top 8 riders were Dutch. The winner that day, <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/lucinda-brand\" title=\"Lucinda Brand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lucinda Brand<\/a>, has won 13 out of the 15 races she has participated in this season, while <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/mathieu-van-der-poel\" title=\"Mathieu van der Poel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> is unrivaled in the men&#8217;s field.<\/p>\n<p>De Knegt also highlighted encouraging results from younger riders. \u201cWith two podium places for Cas Timmermans and Delano Heeren among the junior men, third place for Isis Versluis in the junior women\u2019s race, and victory for David Haverdings in the under-23 category, TeamNL performed very strongly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead to upcoming UCI World Cup round to be held in Gavere, it is expected to be less muddy compared to other years. &#8220;That will definitely make for a different race, but Gavere is definitely a classic on the calendar where it&#8217;s difficult to win. I think sand courses suit us as Dutchmen.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite Van Empel\u2019s absence, Dutch riders continue to dominate cyclocross. At the UCI World Cup Koksijde, the top&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,184548,188049,199577,188048,10102,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-652177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-cyclocross","10":"tag-fem-van-empel","11":"tag-gerben-de-knegt","12":"tag-lucinda-brand","13":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115773733816051526","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}