Puck Pieterse

Pieterse grew up in Amersfoort and came to cycling through mountain biking and cyclo-cross, racing both from around the age of ten. Alpecin-Fenix signed her in March 2020, while she was still riding as a junior. She took the U23 European cyclo-cross title that winter, and in 2022 won the U23 world championship at Fayetteville ahead of Shirin van Anrooij and Fem van Empel.

In 2023 she won the European cross-country title and the season-long cross-country World Cup, then took the world cross-country championship at Vallnord in Andorra in 2024. She was fourth in the Olympic cross-country in Paris that summer. In cyclo-cross she won the Dutch elite title in 2023 and 2025, and was third at the world championships in Tábor in 2024 and Liévin in 2025, behind Van Empel and Lucinda Brand both times.

She rode the road as a secondary programme until the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, where she won stage four into Liège by outsprinting Demi Vollering. She held the mountains jersey through the middle of the race and finished eleventh overall in the white jersey of best young rider. Weeks later she won the under-23 world road title in Zurich, decided within the elite race.

In the 2025 Ardennes week she was third at the Amstel Gold Race, won La Flèche Wallonne and was second at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. On the Mur de Huy she attacked with 150 metres left and held Vollering by two seconds, her first Women's WorldTour win. Four days later she lost a four-rider sprint at Liège to Kimberley Le Court.

She did not ride the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, spending June on the mountain bike instead and winning the cross-country World Cup rounds at Leogang and Val di Sole plus the short track races at Nové Město, Leogang and Val di Sole. In cyclo-cross she bunny hops the plank barriers rather than running them, and on the road her wins have come from steep climbs and late accelerations.

Through the 2025-26 cross winter she reached the World Cup podium repeatedly without winning, third at Gavere, second at Dendermonde and third at Zonhoven. Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado beat her to the Dutch title at Huijbergen. She won the closing rounds at Maasmechelen and Hoogerheide, then was third again at the world championships, at Hulst behind Brand and Alvarado.