After a nearly two-year absence from cyclocross, Marianne Vos made her return at the UCI World Cup in Besançon on Sunday, where she finished in fifth place on the difficult icy course with a mediocre starting position.
The eight-time world champion’s last cyclocross race was at the Benidorm World Cup in January 2023 before her recovery from iliac artery surgery in August, forced her to miss the following 'cross season.
Before the start in France, the Visma-Lease A Bike rider admitted that she had some apprehension about her first race back.
“Well, exciting and some nerves as well of course, always the first race of the season,” Vos said.
“I think in this race everybody will fight for, for their own position. I mean, it's hard, it's technical, I will have to try and, and move up a little in the field, but I'll see how far I can get.”
Relegated to a fifth-row start, she knew that she would have a battle in front of her to get a result, and then she faced the extra challenging ice-over-mud course conditions and brutally cold weather, hovering around the freezing point.
For Vos, the entire lap was difficult, and could not pinpoint a specific section as the most difficult.
“There's not much of a recuperation in the race, so if you're uphill and you're pushing or running, and if you're downhill, you need to be very sharp and then focus because every corner is really slippery.”
Vos made her way through the pack, moving up to 11th place after the first lap while at the front, world champion Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease A Bike) soloed away to victory. Midway through the five-lap race, Vos connected with Zoe Backstedt (Canyon-Sram) in a battle for fourth place.
The 37-year old Dutchwoman and the 20-year old Brit were then locked in a duel, each using their specific skills to take the front, and even skipping some bike changes to get the advantage while keeping track of riders coming up behind them. But then, on the final lap, Backstedt was able to get a small gap, and hold it to the finish line for fourth place.
“I had nothing,” Vos said of her final lap. “I was just really, really tired and of course, the coordination gets a bit messy if you're tired, so the last lap was maybe not the best one, but it was a good race also with Zoe Backstedt so it was nice.”
“I'm pretty happy. It was definitely a hard race but I was happy to find myself moving up in the bunch, and then of course when I was around 4 or 5, it got really, really hard, and then I fought until the line. So I'm happy with the race today.”
Vos said that she would use this race to test her performance to see if she would race the World Championship in in Liévin, France later in the season.
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