The Netherlands had a very successful first day at the Track Cycling World Championships in the Chilean capital Santiago with three gold medals. Both men and women were the strongest in the team sprint on the night from Wednesday to Thursday and Lorena Wiebes won the scratch section a week and a half after her clay world title.
It was no surprise that Roy van den Berg, Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland took the title in the team sprint. Since 2018, they have not become world champions except in 2022. With their victory over Great Britain in the final, they won their seventh world title.
The fact that the women also became world champions in the team sprint was a first. They already won the European title earlier this year in a slightly different composition, but now Kim Kalee, Hetty van de Wouw and Steffie van der Peet took the world title for the first time at the expense of Great Britain. “We finally succeeded: we were fourth so often and second last year,” Van de Wouw said the NOS. “We do it together and celebrate it together, this is super beautiful.”
Wiebes extends title
Lorena Wiebes extended her world title in the scratch section. On her debut at a track cycling World Championships in Denmark last year, she immediately won gold and on the first day of the World Championships in Santiago she defeated the Danish Amalie Dideriksen and the New Zealand Prudence Fowler in the sprint. “It was only when I came out of the last bend that I thought: this will work,” she told NOS. “But it had to come from far away.”
A week and a half ago, Wiebes also became clay world champion in Limburg and she has recorded 25 victories on the road this year. Later this World Cup she will compete in the omnium and the pairs race, together with Lisa van Belle.
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