Is cyclo-cross shooting itself in the foot? Brand disagrees: "You have to be able to do that too"

In the post-race flash interview, Brand said that she didn't want to push herself to the limit, keeping the Cross of Niel on Monday in mind, but that didn't quite work out. "I wanted to balance between going as hard as possible to the finish and not pushing to the limit, because we have another race tomorrow," said the Baloise Trek Lions rider. "But you also want to grab all those seconds. Then I started losing my concentration and made a lot of silly mistakes. That is something I need to be much more critical of."

Brand took the lead as early as the second lap. No one could follow her, so she quickly went off on a solo venture. "I just need to try to make it tough. It's hard to follow here because you hit a dead spot every time when you're in the slipstream, so I thought it was better from the front, and we'll see." Annemarie Worst and Sara Casasola held on the longest, but they too had to drop back pretty fast. Brand noticed that. "If I'm having a tough time, then they must be having a tough time too. I hope," she said with a big smile.

Brand is a queen at recognizing good moments, but how did she develop that skill? "It’s always hard to spot the right moment. Here, of course, there are some corners where you can take a glance, but that first gap is also about intuition. And then we have people who can shout instructions: push through or not," she adds, referring to Sven Nys and Eric Braes. "And I simply trust them: if they say I need to push, they don’t say that for nothing. But you also need to have the legs for it."

After that, it was Alvarado who took second place, having to come back after mechanical issues. "I saw she had problems with her chain, I knew that. Then, of course, she still rides a very strong race. I don't know if she couldn’t follow or if she was keeping tomorrow in mind, but she was riding very strong to come back like that." Brand was very pleased with the win and her extended lead in the standings. "You always want to win, so it's nice to take the victory and gain a bit more of a lead in the standings. I feel good."

While Alvarado already skipped the Koppenberg and Fem van Empel was absent in Lokeren, the path seems clear for the regularity classification. "The X2O Trophy is something I’m focusing on, though it’s always a matter of waiting to see. So far, we’re in a good position, but the season is still young, and a lot can happen. Now, I’m trying to build as much as possible." Casasola is now 1:58 behind, Worst is already more than three minutes behind, and Van Empel and Alvarado have each already lost five minutes.

The fact that Brand is the only one of the 'big four' – Puck Pieterse isn’t doing it either – to make the X2O Trophy a real goal doesn’t bother her. "Sometimes you have to make choices about which classification becomes your goal. The X2O Trophy was tricky with the European Championships, so I understand that choice. And the Koppenberg already creates a gap quickly, of course," said Brand, who, however, doesn’t agree with the recent criticism about the impact of this November 1st race. "I don’t think it’s unfortunate, because you have to be able to do that. With Herentals and Baal, you can also create big gaps, so there is quite a bit of diversity in this classification," she explains her position that cyclo-cross is not shooting itself in the foot.