Femke Van den Driessche is at the centre of a media storm, accused of being the first rider caught concealing a motor in her racing bike at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships on Saturday. She said the bike did not belong to her but to a friend, Nico Van Muylder, who claimed ownership of the bike, according to a new report in Het Nieuwsblad.
“It’s my bike,” Van Muylder told Het Nieuwsblad. “All I can say is it’s my bike.”
The UCI announced on Saturday that it was investigating possible “technological fraud” and that it had detained a bike from the under-23 women’s race. The Belgian Cycling Federation confirmed to Sporza that the detained bike belonged to European and Belgium's U23 champion Van den Driessche, who races for the trade team Team Kleur op Maat and is sponsored by Wilier.
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The next day, UCI President Brian Cookson confirmed in a press conference that the bike in question had a motor concealed inside its tubing, which goes directly against the UCI regulations surrounding technological fraud article 12.1.013.
Van den Driessche and her father vehemently denied that the bike found in the mechanic’s pit during the under-23 women’s race at the cyclo-cross Worlds was hers. She claimed that the bike in question belonged to Van Muylder and that she sold it to him a year ago.
“That bike belongs to a friend of mine,” she said. “He trains along with us. He joined my brothers and my father. That friend joined my brother at the reconnaissance, and he placed the bike against the truck, but it’s identical to mine. Last year he bought it from me. My mechanics have cleaned the bike and put it in the truck. They must’ve thought that it was my bike. I don’t know how it happened.”
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