Kortekaas against history

No female rider has dominated the Titan World Series quite like Tessa Kortekaas. Today, the Dutch rider achieved a feat that only she has ever accomplished in the history of the Škoda Titan Desert Morocco: finishing ninth overall.

Only eight riders have finished ahead of the Massi ISB Sport Inverse cyclist. Among them are such big names as Luis León Sánchez, Luis Ángel Maté, and stage winner and Kortekaas’s teammate Noel Martín.

Today’s was the queen stage of this year’s race. Nearly 120 kilometers of pure desert, stretches of sand, rock, and roads in a constant up-and-down climb. The heat and nights spent camping are also taking their toll on the Titans.

Even so, the leading group shows no signs of slowing down and has completed the stage in just over four hours—well below the projected time.

The usual suspects finished together at the front and in the sprint, but throughout the day there were countless twists and turns, attacks, strategies, and breakaways.

In the end, Martín took the win. This marks his second victory this year and his fourth overall at the Škoda Titan Desert Morocco. That said, Maté remains in the lead, with a margin of more than nine minutes over his closest rivals.

However, today all eyes were on Kortekaas. The leader of the women’s general classification is currently in tenth place overall. And, of course, she has secured her fourth consecutive stage victory.

The gap between her and her closest rivals in the overall standings is starting to seem insignificant—both because it’s so wide and because Kortekaas is competing against herself and against history.

A force of nature that sweeps through everything in its path and tends to get stronger as the race goes on. All that remains to be seen is where the final chapter will end for a cyclist who has already secured her place among the greatest athletes to have ever raced through the Moroccan desert.