This page covers Puck Pieterse's 2026 season race-by-race, including results, roles, key moments, and incidents for each race. Each entry is a spoiler for the corresponding race. Read no further if you intend to watch any of them unspoiled.
Puck Pieterse's 2026 was a season of near-misses at the top of women's racing, bookended by a cyclocross medal. She opened the winter with bronze at the UCI Cyclocross World Championships in Hulst (31 January), winning a final-lap fight for the last podium step behind an all-Dutch sweep led by Lucinda Brand. On the road she was a fixture in every classic finale: sixth at Strade Bianche (+16"), fourth in a tight Milano-Sanremo Donne sprint, then a run of podiums in the Ardennes and cobbled classics — third at the Ronde van Vlaanderen (+42"), second at La Flèche Wallonne (same time as the winner), and second again at Liège-Bastogne-Liège (+1:29). A spring that announced her as a complete one-day racer across every terrain, even if the biggest win stayed just out of reach.
Pieterse was one of the few to briefly follow Vollering's move on La Redoute and then anchored the chase group through the finale, but the leader was never coming back. She won the sprint for second at 1:29, a high-class Ardennes result against the established classics riders.
The defending champion was the only rider able to respond to Vollering's long-range move, and she nearly pulled off a remarkable save. Caught out by the early acceleration, Pieterse launched a powerful surge up the inside in the final few hundred metres and clawed back almost all of the gap, ending the day on Vollering's wheel — same time, but second. A near-defence that confirmed her standing among the very best on the Mur.
Pieterse was in the elite group on the final Cauberg but could not follow Blasi's long-range move, taking tenth at 43 seconds in the chase. A low-key Amstel by her standards, it preceded a near-perfect title defence at La Flèche Wallonne days later where she was beaten only on the line.
Made the decisive front move and even briefly dropped Ferrand-Prévot on the Paterberg, but couldn't shake her on the run-in. Led out the sprint for second from around 500 m and was passed late, taking third. A standout Monument result for the young Dutch all-rounder.
Featured in Vollering's early Eikenberg split and was prominent through the aggressive second half, but was unable to make the decisive late move and came home in the chase group seven seconds down.
The architect of the decisive selection. Pieterse surged inside the final kilometre of the Poggio, a move only Kopecky, Włodarczyk, Gasparrini and Rüegg could follow, and her acceleration is what created the winning five. She opened the sprint on the Via Roma but, having done the hard work on the climb, was overhauled and finished fourth at the same time — the race's animator without the win.
Bridged across to the Longo Borghini-Niewiadoma move over the crest of the final Le Tolfe, putting herself in the decisive front trio. A near-crash when she caught Longo Borghini's wheel briefly threatened her finale; she came home sixth at +0:16, just off the eight-rider front group's sprint.
One of the project's tracked riders in this otherwise CX-specialist field, Pieterse was among the strongest from the early laps and animated the front of the race alongside Brand. When Brand rode clear and Alvarado settled into second, Pieterse found herself in a multi-rider battle for the final podium step with Hungary's Blanka Kata Vas and France's Amandine Fouquenet. She resolved it on the last lap, taking bronze at +51" to complete an all-Dutch sweep — a strong winter result for a rider whose main focus is the road and mountain-bike seasons to come.
A dominant, front-of-race ride on home soil. Pieterse repeatedly accelerated through the laps to pare down the lead group, then launched the decisive move on the final lap to win by about six seconds. The victory completed a back-to-back World Cup weekend double (Maasmechelen the day before) and capped her cyclocross winter on a high ahead of the World Championships.
Won Maasmechelen with a decisive acceleration on the fourth lap, dropping Amandine Fouquenet and riding clear for her first World Cup victory of the 2025–2026 season. She beat teammate Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado by ten seconds for a Fenix-Premier Tech one-two. For a rider whose primary ambitions are on the road and in cross-country mountain biking, the result underlined how formidable she remains when she dips into a cyclocross winter — and it set up a further win the next day in the series finale at Hoogerheide.
The project's tracked rider in this CX-specialist field, Pieterse was the early aggressor, hitting the front and looking the strongest in the opening laps of the frozen Zonhoven course. But the ice undid her: a first mistake cost her contact with the leaders, and a second fall on lap five — when she had already lost too much ground to fight for the win — sealed her fate. She held on for third at +0:49 to round out an all-Dutch podium, a respectable winter result for a rider whose main targets lie on the road and mountain bike.