Guess who’s back: Anna van der Breggen scouts the World Championship course in Rwanda

Wednesday, 27 November 2024 at 10:27

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It won’t be long before Anna van der Breggen is back as a professional cyclist. The 34-year-old from Zwolle in the Netherlands will return to the peloton in 2024, after having spent three years away from cycling, with her ultimate goal being to win the Tour de France Femmes. However, her social media posts on Tuesday hinted at another possible ambition: the grueling World Championship in Rwanda.

Van der Breggen, who was world road race champion in 2018 (Innsbruck) and 2020 (Imola), has already traveled to Rwanda to scout the course. On Instagram, she shared footage of the bustling streets of Kigali, the epicenter of the 2025 World Road Cycling Championships. This will mark the first time the World Championships are held on the African continent.

The Dutch rider, who in recent seasons worked as a sports director for her team SD Worx-Protime, was accompanied in Rwanda by Koos Moerenhout, the Dutch national coach for the men's division, and Wilbert Broekhuizen, the technical director of the Royal Dutch Cycling Union. Laurens ten Dam, the newly appointed women’s national coach, was not there.

Read more below the photo!

Can coach Ten Dam count on Van der Breggen as an additional team leader alongside Vollering?

It’s entirely possible that Ten Dam will have multiple team leaders to choose from for next season’s World Championships. The course in Rwanda features significant elevation gains and high-altitude sections, which are typically a perfect fit for Demi Vollering, who starred at the World Championships in Zurich this past September.

Following that race and some earlier missteps, criticism of the Dutch women’s team and former national coach Loes Gunnewijk increased. This led to the responsibility falling to Ten Dam to repair the team’s dynamics. Van der Breggen herself has experienced disappointing performances with the Dutch women’s team in the past, such as the controversial road race at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She ended her career at the World Championships in Leuven in Belgium that same year, where things also didn’t go smoothly.

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Bram van der PloegEditor-in-chief

Bram van der Ploeg (35) is the proud founder of In de Leiderstrui, IDL Pro Cycling's parent site, launched in 2018. Finally, he could create stories about the sport he had followed since childhood. He is the editor-in-chief on paper, but prefers to be with his recorder next to a rider, a team bus, or in the mud at a cyclocross race. Every year, from February to the end of May, Bram follows the entire Italian cycling season, from the Trofeo Laigueglia to the Giro d'Italia, with the grand finale in October in Lombardy. During that time, he lives in Tuscany, where he has since come to call Italy his 'home'.

Bram van der Ploeg | Lindkedin | Email

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