Liv Racing Xstra aimed to play its role during the Dutch nationals. The team performed well with Thalita de Jong finishing inside the top-10.
With Sabrina Stultiens back in the team Liv Racing Xstra started with five riders in the Dutch national championships. Stultiens and Eva Buurman were in the front of the peloton during the first part of the race. The first three laps there were no attacks. Eventually some groups got away, but the peloton reeled everything in. Thalita de Jong was one of the riders who went in the attack with a group of 7 riders, but also this attempt didn`t succeed.
Together with De Jong Quinty Ton and Jeanne Korevaar were in the first group during the final part of the race. Korevaar had to let go the bunch after a mechanical. Ton and De Jong stayed in the small peloton and reacted to some attacks. From the first group two riders attacked at 10 kilometres from the finish. Despite a frantic chase of the peloton the duo stayed away. Riejanne Markus crowned herself to the new champion. De Jong finished some seconds later in an 8th position.
“Sabrina and Eva did a good job in the first hours of the race. It was too bad Jeanne had some bad luck. Quinty and I tried to jump with some of the breakaway. Unfortunately none of them worked out properly. We had to recover from this and so we couldn`t respond to the attack of the two riders. In the finale the pace was very high, but we couldn`t reel them anymore. I finished in a 8th place and that was something I didn`t expect before the race. I think we did a very good race with the team. We aimed for more, but we can be satisfied with this result”, De Jong said after the race.
These words were echoed by sports director Wim Stroetinga. “We raced to win the title and just missed out on the final breakaway. That was too bad. However we played our role in the race and were there in the finale.”