With Mathieu van der Poel, Tibor Del Grosso, and (as expected) Puck Pieterse, plenty of well-known cyclocross riders will once again be taking to the field in Namur, but the provisional start list also features a notable name: Jolanda Neff. The Swiss star last competed in a World Cup event four years ago.
In recent years, Neff has hardly raced in cyclocross and has been absent from the highest level of the discipline altogether, but last month she was already seen competing in two American C2 races. In the opening round of the North Carolina Grand Prix, she outpaced local riders Lizzy Gunsalus and Lauren Zoerner. She repeated the feat the very next day.
Since then, she hasn't raced in cyclocross, but if the provisional entry list for the Namur World Cup race is anything to go by, she will participate this Sunday in the demanding race on the slopes of the Citadel of Namur. The last time Neff took part in a World Cup race was in 2021, in Iowa, USA.
We know the now 32-year-old Neff primarily as a top mountain biker—she became Olympic champion in Tokyo 2021 and was already world champion in cross-country four years earlier—but the Swiss rider has also made her mark in cyclocross.
She has won the Swiss national championship in this discipline, placed sixth at the 2019 Cyclocross World Championships in Bogense, and has finished multiple times in the top 5 of World Cup cyclocross races, including in Namur. Perhaps her most notable achievement is the victory in the Baal New Year's Cross on January 1, 2019, which currently stands as her only win in a stage race.
