Puck Pieterse must have been wondering what else she would have to do to win a bike race this spring. The Fenix-Deceuninck rider hadn’t finished outside the top ten in all nine of the races she had started in 2025, but she had not yet raised her arms in celebration. Three fourth-place finishes, a second and then most recently a third-place at Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race are all commendable results, but how could the young Dutch superstar break her duck and get her first Classics win?
The simple answer is get into a race where tactics would not dominate the way the finale would play out, where Pieterse can show off her pure ability. Step up the Mur de Huy. The iconic, brutal final climb of La Flèche Wallonne, where aerodynamics have very little effect, where teammates can’t offer much support, where it’s rider-against-rider up an agonisingly steep final kilometre.
Of course, pacing and timing are vital on the Mur and Pieterse joked in her post-race interview: “I listened to my sports director for once” about when to launch her winning attack. It’s as simple as that if you are the best young talent in the peloton, which Pieterse certainly is. Ever since her impressive fifth place at Strade Bianche in 2023 as a 20-year-old and then her Tour de France stage win last year, Pieterse’s talent has been obvious. However, she has often been hamstrung by the way races have played out, often where she worked too much for others in groups and lacked teammates in key moments in the finales of the major one-day races. On Sunday at Amstel, Pieterse worked too hard and was on the front too much, taking too much wind for others in the leading group and missed out as Mischa Bredewold disappeared up the road to victory.
On Wednesday, there was no such mistake. Entering the final climb up the Mur and on its lower slopes, thanks to solid work from her team delivering her into position, Pieterse sat behind the favourite Demi Vollering and her FDJ-Suez teammate Juliette Labous, who set the pace on the unforgiving average of 9.7%. Riders were dropping like flies, including Lotte Kopecky and all her SD-Worx Protime teammates. Moments where Pieterse may have attacked previously — with 500m to go, 400m and then when Labous peeled off – came and went and she was still sitting comfortably in the lead bunch, but still behind Vollering.
The group was whittled right down to the strongest challengers. Next up to be struggling, coming up to 300m to go, was last year’s winner Kasia Niewiadoma who was beginning to slip away and still Pieterse had not attacked. So far so good, in fact, so far, so perfect, as the longer up the climb they got without the Pieterse move, the more and more likely it looked that she would challenge. Then with 175m to go Liane Lippert, and one of the stars of the spring Elisa Longo Borghini, began to drop off and all that remained were Pieterse and Vollering. And then suddenly with 150m to go Pieterse launched — the first time she had taken to the front on the final climb. Despite Vollering’s valiant attempt to match her compatriot’s acceleration, Pieterse was unmatchable. When she gets her timing and tactics right, she is one of the best — today the best — in the world. And what makes this all the more significant is that this was not a subdued midweek Classic. All of the best riders were here, Vollering, Kopecky, Longo Borghini, Niewiadoma.
The Mur doesn’t only seem to reward the strongest rider on one day in April. Its slopes are beginning to have the habit of foreshadowing the rest of the season. The last two winners of Flèche have gone on to have the most successful seasons of their careers — including winning the yellow jersey at the Tour. Vollering was all conquering in 2023, claiming 14 road victories and three GC titles. Last year Niewiadoma took an emotional victory at Flèche — her first win in five years — in what was her most lucrative season, culminating in her famous 2024 Tour triumph.
Pieterse is on the rise. She is 22-years-old and her Flèche win is not going to be the crowning moment of her career. It is significant, it is the first time her enormous talent has been rewarded with a Classics win but it certainly won’t be her last. And with a number of other opportunities this year, we — and Pieterse herself — should get used to seeing her raise her arms in celebration.
