Despite only taking on her second full spring Classics campaign this year, Puck Pieterse will head to Sunday's Tour of Flanders as a genuine contender, stronger and more experienced than last year and with an impressive Fenix-Deceuninck team around her.
The Tour de France Femmes stage winner has continued her astonishing consistency in road racing this spring, finishing in the top 10 of all seven races she's started in 2025, and after an aggressive performance at Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday, she's ready for another attempt at Flanders.
"I think I can be quite confident," Pieterse told Cyclingnews on Friday. "Every race we learn more. I think it will just be a nice day in general. The weather is super good now in Belgium; it's dry, which is nice.
"I just have to be confident, and the last few races I was there, so I can be there again. If I make the right move in the final, everything is possible."
Last year, Pieterse was often alone going into the key moments of these big Classics, but the team has strengthened around her in the last 12 months, and on Sunday, she'll count on the likes of Christina Schweinberger, Carina Schrempf and Julie De Wilde as reliable domestiques.
It's a change from what Pieterse is used to in off-road disciplines and a real boost to her chances.
"It's nice that you have people you can count on, and sometimes you make a mistake in the race, but the team can clean it up a bit to help you with it, or you can sort something out together," she explained.
"So it's really way more like a chess game on the road than it is in cross and mountain bike. It's just overall the vibes are really good."
That strength in the team makes it easier for Fenix-Deceuninck to race in a way that suits Pieterse, and they already know what they need to do in Flanders.
"A hard race," was DS Michel Cornelisse's answer to what Pieterse would need to do well on Sunday. "Otherwise, you always have Wiebes or Kopecky, but I think in a hard race, a lot is possible. But the race must be hard for Puck, and she also needs a good day. It's not that if the race is hard, Puck is there by herself, but normally she's there then."
As the team already showed on Wednesday, with multiple attacks in the final, they're not afraid of getting stuck in the action and challenging the bigger teams.
"We'll see how hard other teams make it from the beginning, but I think the plan for us would be to race aggressively because it shows that we want to race, and I think there are multiple that want to race, so I think that's the best chance for having a small group in the front," Pieterse said.
Room to improve
Despite such impressive and consistent results in the Classics, Pieterse is missing one big thing: a win. She of course won a stage of the Tour last year, but a victory in the Classics continues to elude her, despite coming close on multiple occasions.
"The next step is that she tries to finish it off," Cornelisse said. "She's always there in the final, but now the next step is to win races. She's been already close a few times, but cycling is about winning races, and she is a winner. Hopefully everything goes well, and she finds the right tactic to win."
For Pieterse, she still sees some room to improve physically, but she's also just searching for more experience, to know how to tackle the multitude of different race scenarios that can play out in the Classics.
"I think it's just the motor that has to grow still, to really have the final kick in the final but also just every race gaining more experience," she said. "If you come for the first time in the position where you have to sprint, for example, with two or three, you don't really know what to do and you maybe make a mistake. But you can learn from it, and then see different situations and know if you have to worry or maybe you recognise the situation, so the more you race the more experience you have."
One boost this year is that the team has been working with Annemiek van Vleuten, one of the peloton's best ever riders, who can offer advice on pretty much every element of cycling and racing.
"I think mainly to have patience," Pieterse said of the biggest lesson Van Vleuten has taught her. "Because it's difficult sometimes, you want everything at once of course, but she just has so much experience in general, like every race situation she has been in already, so you can ask her anything, and when it comes from her you're more likely to stick to it and believe it than it when it comes from somebody who did not race. So it's a big plus."
Despite Pieterse's fervent desire to race – which can sometimes mean she does too much, too early – that's not something her team are worried about, or particularly want to teach her not to do. It's a style of racing they want to foster, but just hone slightly so the tactics work out too.
"Puck sometimes makes mistakes, but it's not bad to make a mistake. It's better than to do nothing. To do nothing is a mistake, but if you make a mistake then you did something with the plan to win," Cornelisse explained.
"Sometimes you do it good, and sometimes you do it wrong, and that's maybe the problem with Puck. She's racing with her heart, she's always giving full gas, but that's also nice because that's what women's cycling needs, riders who give everything, so I don't want to change that with Puck. But now the last step is to win races. She was in Italy already close, Milan-San Remo she was also very good, but winning or tenth, that's only a small difference in how you ride the final. She's always enthusiastic and she always wants to race, and she wants to learn, that's also important."
Coming from such prolific victories in cyclocross and on the mountain bike, it would be easy to imagine that Pieterse was feeling the pressure to find that coveted Classics win, but the 22-year-old is as cool headed as ever heading into her second De Ronde.
"I just let it be. I don't put that much pressure on myself actually, I just enjoy the racing and try to go in every race knowing I'm going to give it my all, and that's it. Until now it has worked out."
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