Cycling: Women's race delayed after rider catches up to men

Nicole Hanselmann. Photo / Getty

A women's cycling race was forced to be stopped in Belgium after a breakaway rider nearly caught up to the men's race which started 10 minutes earlier.

Former Swiss time trial champion Nicole Hanselmann broke away early into the prestigious Omloop Het Nieuwsblad one-day race from Gent to Ninove in Flanders.

Hanselmann got out to a two-minute lead before closing in on the stragglers in the men's race which forced the women's event to be neutralised.

The halt gave the women's peleton a chance to catch up to the 27-year-old, who was then given a two-minute head start at the restart before being passed and finishing 74th overall.

"Maybe the other women and me were too fast or the men too slow," Hanselmann joked on Instagram after the race.

She told Cycling News the stop to the race hurt her chances of victory.

"We could just see the ambulances of the men's race. I think we stopped for five or seven minutes and then it just kills your chances."

"I got the gap again to start with on my own and I was just stood ten metres ahead of the bunch waiting and I got the gap again and then they caught me at the end of the first cobbled section," she told Cyclingnews.