A windy edition of Drentse Acht van Westerveld awaited the peloton this afternoon, as they rolled out to take on the numerous laps of the circuit around Dwingeloo and the surrounding area. Attentive from the flag drop, the team were to the fore immediately and put the pressure on in the early stages, causing the race to split to pieces in the opening kilometres.

Riding well as a unit Léa Curinier, Charlotte Kool, Floortje Mackaij and Franziska Koch made the first group, with Megan Jastrab and Leah Kirchmann in the second chasing group after doing a lot of work to create the splits. For a while the gap hovered at around 30 seconds before eventually the two groups came together, meaning all six Team DSM riders were in the front split of 40 riders.

As the kilometres and laps ticked by, the attacks kept happening and the group split once again, from which Mackaij launched a strong counter attack alongside three others. With the rest of the team excellently marking the chase behind it became clear that Mackaij’s group would battle it out for the win. A fighter, Mackaij made several attacks in the closing lap but she was eventually reeled in and it came down to a four-up sprint. Pushing all the way to the line, Mackaij gave it her all to claim a good third place for the team, with Kool taking sixth in the sprint from the chasing group behind – a strong double top ten finish after what was a good team performance.

Speaking after the finish Mackaij said: “The race was on from the start with echelons and every time we aimed to be the first ones in the move and to really fight for it. It was just hard racing from beginning until the end, but everyone went all-in as a team which was great. Entering the final local lap I made it into a break of four and kept attacking in the last kilometres but they closed me down. Of course in the finale, I was hoping for more but in the end we can be satisfied with a podium and how we raced today.”