Fem van Empel

Fem van Empel is a Dutch professional racing cyclist. In January 2021, she won the women's under-23 race at the 2021 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships. 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 February 2023 at Brussels, Fem clinched the X20 Badkamers Trophy. The previous week, her first race in the World Champions jersey, competing in the X20 Badkamers at Lille she finished 1st doing a "Pidcock" across the finish line. 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. Fem Van Empel retained her UCI World Championship at Tábor on 3 February 2024. One commentator noted he had "run out of superlatives to describe Fem's phenomenal talent", calling her "The Golden Girl of Cyclocross". Another described her performance as " pretty much perfection". "Velo" noted that "her 18th victory out of what has been a 20-race season" is "a staggering success rate". Fem completed her 2023 to 2024 season with a win to take the X²O Badkamers Trophy at Lille on 11 February. This took her number of wins for the season to 19 from 21 races. At the end of season 2023 to 2024 Fem's career total number of Elite level Cyclo-cross race wins was 37. At the completion of Season 2024/2025.Fem had won her third consecutive Cyclocross world Championship, her third consecutive European Championship and had made her third consecutive wins of the prestigious Koppenberg cross, Sven Nys cross, Antwerpen cross and Benidorm UCI World Cup stage. On the 25 October 2025 Fem won The Exact Cross Heerderstrand to take her 50th win in top level Cyclocross.