Mads Pedersen weighs in on Lucinda Brand and Marie Schreiber's European Cyclocross Championship clash

Pedersen has been Brand’s teammate at Lidl-Trek in recent years, and he, too, was caught up in the sprint.

“My take is that I’ve seen worse things in cyclocross…,” said the Dane. “But imagine how awful it is for the person who wins—and how awful it is for Lucinda to find out afterward that you won that way.”

"It’s pretty intense,” Pedersen says. “I didn’t even know there were rules in cyclocross. I just thought it was a matter of: ‘Go, three, two, one, ride.’ It’s like a street fight, a kind of underground brawl... It’s the MMA of cycling,” he laughs on his podcast Lang Distance.

On Saturday, Brand was the first to acknowledge that Schreiber had deserved to win the race, but despite that, she went down in history as the winner. The Luxembourgish rider spoke at length about this on Monday on RTL in her home country.

"There was never an official protest filed either; it really came purely from the commissioners themselves," Schreiber said. “Two of them disagreed, but Lucinda also said, ‘Marie won fair and square—what’s this all about?’ The head of the judges remained fairly unperturbed and essentially settled the matter right away. He simply said, ‘The decision is final; this is the outcome.’”

Lucinda Brand withdrew from the Jaarmarktcross in Niel after falling on the first lap and injuring her right foot. She tried to continue but soon left the race in pain, making her withdrawal a major blow to the field.

Team leader Sven Nys explained that Brand had twisted her foot and had urged her to get it checked for possible ligament damage. It was clear that the cyclocross legend was worried. Manon Bakker went on to win the race in Niel, ahead of Sara Casasola and Denise Betsema.