Every year, riders retire, and Annemiek van Vleuten's farewell had already been announced a year earlier. Yet, it hurt when she was welcomed by a wonderful crowd in Arnhem, in her last official race as a pro. In 2024, there will be no more long solos, no more bizarre Strava files, and above all, no more broad smiles for the camera after those races. Time for a final ode...
The story of Van Vleuten doesn't need to be elaborated here. Let's keep it short: Born in Vleuten, raised in Gelderland, and enjoying student life during her studies in Wageningen. A talented footballer who turned to cycling with the tour club TCW'79 due to injuries. She was 24 years old and nothing pointed to a career like the one she eventually had. Especially not when in 2009 - now racing for the precursor of Rabobank - she had to undergo surgery for a narrowed femoral artery.
The surgery was successful and Van Vleuten's career began to skyrocket. At the 2010 Dutch National Time Trial Championships, the Dutch cycling public first got to know her with a fourth-place finish. However, her overall victory in the Route de France that year captured the imagination more. In 2011, there was no turning back for the then 29-year-old Annemiek when she won the Tour of Flanders in the spring. A star was born, although she was still a rider who mainly scored in one-day races. Her time trial skills were already noticeable. In her last year with Rabobank (2014), she won two stages in the Giro Donne and won the general classification in the Lotto Belisol Belgium Tour with two stage wins.
Van Vleuten had taken off, literally and figuratively. In 2015, she made the surprising move from Rabobank to the Swiss team Bigla and a year later switched to the Australian Mitchelton-Scott. This is the team that would shape her into the greatest grand tour cyclist in women's cycling. She brought her career total of victories to 34 in 2016, but 2016 is especially remembered as the year when Van Vleuten climbed better than ever and crashed out in a winning position in Rio's Olympic Games, suffering a heavy concussion and three fractures in her spine.
At 34, Van Vleuten was not sure if she could ever be as good again, just at the moment when the whole world actually saw for the first time how good she was. Losing Anna van der Breggen uphill, then you are a class act. For Van Vleuten, therefore, Rio 2016 is not only a sporting low point but especially a mental high point. After Rio, she trained harder, more purposefully, and crazier than ever. And after 2016, Van Vleuten really became the machine that would dominate cycling for another seven years.
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Annemiek van Vleuten: harder, better, faster, stronger
What we have seen in the past few years is extraordinary. Such feats are unlikely to be witnessed again soon in women's cycling. Van Vleuten trained with the men's team of Mitchelton-Scott and later also with Movistar. She would hang on at the back for hours, both uphill and downhill. The men didn't hold back, but Van Vleuten kept up. She received stimuli that other women never experienced, mainly because their bodies couldn't handle it. Van Vleuten's could. Together with her coach Louis Delahaije, she pushed her limits, and they reached far.
During the winter periods, Van Vleuten often recorded more kilometers on Strava than the men from the WorldTour. She held training camps where she ascended Alpe d'Huez countless times, in altimeters that is. She just kept going, starting races when the other women were already exhausted. In 2017 and 2018, Anna van der Breggen, with her pure talent, was the only one who could compete with Van Vleuten's zeal. From 2019, these dynamics gradually shifted, until Van der Breggen retired in 2021.
From 2019, Van Vleuten continuously amassed victories on all fronts. In 2018, she won the Giro for the first time, a feat she repeated in 2019. That year, she also won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and became the world champion in Yorkshire, after an incredible solo ride of over a hundred (!) kilometers. After a lost year due to COVID, she added the Tour of Flanders and the Vuelta to her list of achievements in 2021, and became the Olympic time trial champion in Tokyo: the perfect revenge for Rio.
2022 was unequivocally Annemiek van Vleuten's best year: she won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Liège, the Giro, the very first Tour de France Femmes, the Vuelta, and... once again the rainbow jersey. And in a remarkable manner: Van Vleuten broke her wrist in the Mixed Team Relay, was initially in poor form, but a few days later had such strong legs that she took off in the final kilometer while seated on the saddle (as standing was almost impossible with her wrist). She recently said it was the greatest victory of her career, and that's easy to imagine.
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Van Vleuten: a top athlete, power woman and unifier
After 2022, Van Vleuten announced she would retire. One more year, with the goal of giving it her all one last time. Through a now-familiar high-altitude training camp in Colombia, she did everything she normally does, but something was missing. The bursts of speed were there, but suddenly there were women (often in SD Worx jerseys) who could keep up with her and even surpass her. On one hand, it marked the rise of a new generation, and on the other, a Van Vleuten who might have reached her limits in 2022. Naturally, this was frustrating.
Yet, she never let it show. In every interview, on every podcast, and after every race, there was her smile. She didn't win a single race in the spring, and she perhaps only won the Vuelta because her rival Demi Vollering chose a really badly timed moment to take a pee break. Vollering was better in the Tour, even after Van Vleuten seemed to regain her top form in the Giro, leading to overall victory. The rainbow jersey shone one last time in the Tour of Scandinavia, where Van Vleuten recorded her final victory: the general classification.
In the Simac Ladies Tour, she bid her farewell, and she seemed to be the only one truly ready for it. There was no more energy left in her body to seek even a one or two percent improvement. There was no more room for all those races. It was time for reflection, family, friends, and a beer. Only then did she realize the extent of her achievements and that it was truly over. "They will go on now. Without me. And I don't like that very much," she said to NRC.
What's next? Well, actually, nothing for a bit. "Looking back on my student days, I was really doing good without all those goals and I'm looking forward to going back to those days a bit. I think for the coming year I'm happy that not everything is planned," she recently stated. Good for her. The ambition to work with young athletes and introduce them to the 'Annemiek regimen' can wait. Even though it immediately shows how Van Vleuten, despite her own focus, has always been about connecting. She has shaped the sport as it is today. A power woman who will no longer make her pedals screech in pain. A top athlete through and through can finally rest easy. We will miss you, Annemiek!
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