Cycling Women Danilith Nokere Koerse
Fien Delbaere starts in Nokere Koerse for the third time. — © Geert De Rycke
Gent –
Fien Delbaere will be at the start of Danilith Nokere Koerse for the third time in Deinze on Wednesday. This time in the jersey of Team Komugi-Grand Est. A modest French UCI team without top players, but a team that we will hear from once more, according to the 27-year-old rider from Ghent.
“Team Komugi-Grand Est emerged from a club story and is only in its second year as a continental UCI team this season, but it is well put together in all areas,” says Delbaere, who races full-time as a French employee. “The atmosphere is great, the grinta is there and the results will follow in due course. From April onwards the 1.1 prices should become our thing. Continental level teams must pay their riders in France and Spain full-time. So we are all professionals. In that respect we lag behind in Belgium, because that rule does not apply here.”
Delbaere may feel good regarding her French team, but things did not go as expected on a sporting level. “That has everything to do with a fall in the Omloop het Nieuwsblad. I didn’t fall myself, but I had to close everything to prevent a fall. And I made a wrong move that got stuck in my back. It meant that I mightn’t really go all out in the past races, but it’s getting better. I hope to be completely free of this discomfort in regarding two weeks.”
Fien Delbaere is a professional at Team Komugi-Grand Est. — © Marc Van Hecke
Escape of the day
Fien Delbaere is riding a race in her region with Danilith Nokere Koerse. “The course has changed compared to the previous edition, but I don’t think that will change the competition image. As a team we must try to participate in the breakaway of the day. And then try to hang on for as long as possible and see where we end up.”
The team has now been assured of participation in Paris-Roubaix. The French connection will of course play a major role in this. “We already explored with seven riders. One still has to lose weight, but I do suspect that I will be able to participate in the Hell Classic for the first time. Nokere Koerse, with its seventeen kilometers of cobblestones, is a perfect foretaste.”
