We could easily choose Belgian Remek Evenepoel as the biggest star of the Road World Championship in Australia, who won the mass race and was third in the time trial.
But perhaps an even bigger star this time was Annemiek van Vleutenová from the Netherlands, who won in the last meters of the road race ahead of the oncoming peloton.
Annemiek van Vleutenová is a phenomenon in a good sense of the word. Few female athletes have experienced what she has experienced. She could have the motto “Pain is my engine” in her coat of arms. At the just ended championship in Australia, at the age of 39, she completed a literally incredible story of falls, injuries, subsequent resurrections and wonderful victories. It was no different now in Wollongong, Australia, where she sprinted to the finish line first with a broken elbow.
He is a strange human being who keeps surprising everyone, so I wonder what will happen next?
This veteran has won practically everything she could in her career. This year, the women’s Tour de France and the Giro (three times in total). She is a two-time world champion in the road race (for the first time in 2019). Two-time world champion in the road time trial (2017 and 2018). She was first in the time trial at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and would have won the road race as well. But more on that in a moment. She is also the European Road Race Champion (2020).
So, now about how she managed to do it all. Although Annemiek won almost everything she could, she never got anything for free. What for free – all her achievements have been bought hard. Crazy falls and serious injuries.
The Dutchwoman even says today that she wins because all those falls have always pushed her forward. They just hardened.
She started with football
As a child in the town that has the same name as her – Vleuten – she played football, did gymnastics and rode horses. Of course she knew the bike, she is Dutch. She rode it, but only to school and around town. She then studied zoology, majoring in epidemiology, at the University of Wageningen.
Even then, she did a little cycling, but only as part of school. She says that she led a classic student life, which was absolutely incompatible with the professional career of an athlete. But then everything somehow came together and soon a big change came. It may have started in 2005 when doctors looked at her injured soccer knee and advised her to cycle more.
And so she began. In the meantime, she took sports tests and they revealed that she has a very high VO2 max – a key indicator for endurance sports. So she decided to try a career as an athlete instead of science. It was 2007, she was 25 years old. While many girls at that age end their careers, Annemiek was just starting one. First in amateur teams and two years later she was already in the Dutch stable of DSB Bank – Nederland Bloeit. Shortly thereafter, she became a full-time professional cyclist.
Three artery surgeries
Her first major victory came in 2010 at the Ronde van Drenthe. Soon after, she also won La Route de France, a sort of shortened female version of the Tour de France.
It could look like a smooth, slightly later career. But the troubles did not end with the injured knee from football. Rather, they started. She had to have three surgeries because her hip arteries were getting clogged.
When she successfully overcame this, she began to consider whether she would remain a specialist for flat racing. Certainly not for the hills, her trainers predicted. But never tell Annemiek that she can’t handle something. Or tell her that and she ends up doing the exact opposite.
Not that she was fat, but she needed to throw something into the climb without losing strength. Therefore, she started working with a nutritionist and found a coach for riding in the hills.
The key goal for a big win in a demanding profile was the Olympic gold medal in Rio 2016. Annemiek prepared well. First, she won the time trial, and in the key race she took it for granted and broke away, as perhaps only she can. Still twelve kilometers before the finish line of the race, she was supremely first and went for the gold.
Horror crash in Rio
But then, in a right-hand turn in the downhill, 12 km before the finish line, there was a terrifying fall. She hit her head on a concrete drain and was left lying lifeless. Diagnosis? Severe concussion and three broken lumbar vertebrae. It was just a matter of time. This was not just about a career, but also about life.
Annemiek returned from the hospital and after ten days (!) of rest she was back on her bike. And within a month she won the Tour of Belgium race. In the winter, she even flew to Colombia to train, where there is a high altitude and excellent conditions for preparation.
Two years after the Olympics, the 2018 World Championships in Innsbruck were suddenly here, and she was again one of the favorites in both races. What do you think? She won the time trial, just like in Rio. But she had another hard fall during the mass race. She jumped into the saddle, but all chances of victory were gone. Nevertheless, she finished seventh. With a broken kneecap and torn ligaments in the knee.
Still, it was a fantastic season, winning 13 races, including the women’s Giro and La Course.
What else can he do?
She had a hard time getting herself together after the injury. She went to train in Colombia again. And in a year at the World Championships in Yorkshire, she was ready to fight for medals again. She didn’t fall this time. She was third in the time trial and finally won the mass race. She cared about that victory. At the finish line, she raised her hands above her head after a hundred-kilometer escape.
The following year she won the European Championship, then finally the Olympics and this year the Giro, the Tour de France and now the World Championship again.
As you already know, it was not free again. Three days earlier, during the mixed time trial, she and the Dutch girls went off the starting ramp, stepped a few times, and then apparently accidentally dropped a small gear. And as she pressed hard on the pedals, she leaned forward, the rear wheel went into the air and she was already lying on the ground. At the hospital, they discovered a hairline fracture in her elbow.
The mass race was approved by the doctors and she stood at the start with a bandaged elbow. You already know the rest.
“I think it’s maybe my best win in my whole career. With the whole week I’ve been through, I don’t know. Yes, it’s a nice story,” she said completely happy after the race.
As fellow time trial winner Ellen van Dijk looked on after her victory, she mused: “She’s a special human being who keeps surprising everyone, so I wonder what’s next?”
