Fem van Empel (born 3 September 2002) is a Dutch professional racing cyclist.[4][5] In January 2021, she won the women's under-23 race at the 2021 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.[6][7] During the 2022–2023 season she won the women's elite race at the World Championships and the European Cyclo-cross Championships. On 22 January 2023, she secured overall victory at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup (2022–23).
On 16 Feb 2023 at Brussels, Fem clinched the X20 Badkamers Trophy.[8] The previous week, her first race in the World Champions jersey, competing in the X20 Badkamers at Lille she finished 1st doing a "Pidcock" (posing as Superwoman) across the finish line.[9]
In the cyclo cross season 2023 to 2024 Fem Van Empel was first in her first eleven races. Having finished the previous season with five successive firsts, it brought her run of first places in top level Cyclocross to sixteen.[10]
Fem Van Empel retained her UCI World Championship at Tábor on 3 February 2024. One respected commentator (Marty McCrossan) noted he had "run out of superlatives to describe Fems phenomenal talent", calling her "The Golden Girl of Cyclocross". Another (Ian Field) described her performance as " pretty much perfection" .[11]
"Velo" noted that "her 18th victory out of what has been (so far) a 20-race season" is "a staggering success rate " [12].Fem completed her 2023 to 2024 season with a win to take the X²O Badkamers Trophy at Lille on 11 Feb. This took her number of wins for the season to 19 from 21 races. [13]
At the end of season 2023 to 2024 Fems' career total number of Elite level Cyclo-cross race wins was 37.
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