Lucinda Brand

Brand grew up in Dordrecht in a cycling household. Her father had raced and her older brother Giancarlo wanted to, so she went along. She entered her first official races at eight, the youngest age the Dutch federation allowed. Cyclo-cross came early as well: she rode the national championships for the first time in 2007, at eighteen, finishing 21st, then set the discipline aside and built a road career.

She won the Dutch national road race title in 2013 and again in 2015, and the Ladies Tour of Norway in 2016. In 2017 she won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad at the first attempt and took a world title in the team time trial, with Giro Rosa stage wins in 2017 and 2018. A second world title followed in the mixed team relay in 2019.

Cyclo-cross had been three or four races a winter around the road season. From 2016-17 she treated it as a campaign of its own. She won the world title in Ostend in January 2021, the European title in Drenthe that November, and the World Cup overall in both 2020-21 and 2021-22.

In 2024-25 she won the World Cup, the Superprestige and the X2O Badkamers Trofee in one winter, as she had in 2021-22. She was the only rider in either the men's or the women's series to finish in the top three of all 27 rounds. The next best was on the podium 12 times.

Her road programme narrowed as the winters grew, though it did not stop. She won the Giro d'Italia Donne mountains classification and a stage in 2021, the Tour de Suisse Women in 2022, and finished eighth overall at the Tour de France Femmes in 2024.

Fem van Empel beat her at the World Championships in 2023, 2024 and 2025, the last of them at Liévin. In November 2025 she was second again at the European championships in Middelkerke, behind Inge van der Heijden.

Across the 2025-26 winter she won the World Cup ahead of Aniek van Alphen and Amandine Fouquenet, taking eight of its twelve rounds, and won the Trofee series with six of its eight. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado won the Dutch title at Huijbergen in January 2026. Brand won the world title at Hulst on 31 January, 27 seconds clear of Alvarado, with Puck Pieterse third.