The Netherland is divided in 12 provinces, one of these provinces is called Gelderland (don't worry, this is not a history lesson). My home town Putten, where my parents and my sister with her family still live, is situated in this province. This is why this race felt a little bit like a tour through my back yard.

The day started really good with a blue sky and a perfect temperature for a 140 km cycling race. The lack of wind was a pity, because that meant that it was more difficult to make it a tough race and when a bunch of 200 cyclist stays together many crashes will happen! So we were all focused to stay out of troubles!

Photo: Sportfoto.nl

Unfortunately I got behind a little crash (one of many crashes!) on the Zijpenberg (a little hill) and had a gap with the bunch. I'm not a strong climber and couldn't close the gap on that hill. So together with team mate Monique and a few others we had to chase several kilometers to get back to the bunch.

Team Cervelo made speed in the final laps to close the gap to Emma Johansson and to make sure that nobody could escape. Team Cervelo has sprinter Kirsten Wild and she could win the race. And so it happened. Although team mate Chantal did try to escape, it was doomed to fail, team Cervelo knew what to do! Kirsten Wild won the race. I sprinted more dead than alive to a 12th place, not bad!

Next week I hope for some wind in Borsele, so that we as team Leontien.nl have more chances to influence the results :-) !! I can't wait!!

Results

See my team mates and me in the Leontien.nl promotion movie: