Ashleigh Moolman is in a ‘nice mental space’ and wants to win the Tour at the age of 37

Two weeks before the Tour starts, the face of Ashleigh Moolman (37) appears life-size on a screen in the headquarters of her main sponsor. She sits on a mountain in the Pyrenees, where she prepares herself for what might be the competition of her life.

A handful of journalists have come to Brussels to attend the team presentation of AG Insurance – Soudal Quick-Step, the team that only just came to watch and played an extra role during the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes last year – except for the white jersey with Julia Borgström for a few days. But that will be different this year. The team, led by former top cyclist Jolien d’Hoore, has great ambitions. And especially with leader Moolman. She is clear about her goal: she wants to win the Tour. And why not? “I’ve never been better.” Last year she fell out with the same stomach virus that almost killed Annemiek van Vleuten.

She will not be mentioned in most of the Tour previews. It is mainly about Van Vleuten and Demi Vollering, who, based on their season so far – Vollering dominated in the classics, Van Vleuten already won the Giro and the Vuelta – have the greatest claim to the yellow jersey in finish place Pau, on Sunday 30 July. But Moolman, in her thirteenth season as a pro, feels that at 37 she is not necessarily inferior to the two favorites. All those years of training translate into her best cycling values ​​ever. And besides, she’s in a nice one mental space”.

The transition she made this season from SD Worx – Vollering’s strong team – to Patrick Lefevere’s much more modest Belgian women’s team, has done her extremely well. “The whole team is now 100 percent behind me,” she says. “That has changed in recent years. I had a hard time at SD Worx. I never had the feeling that they believed in me there.”

Not in place

In her years with the team of sports directors Danny Stam, Lars Boom and Anna van der Breggen, she won three races, including a stage in the Giro and the final classification in the Tour de Romandie, where she beat Van Vleuten. Yet she was not in her place. “It was a team with a lot of self-centered personalities,” she says. “To become a leader, you had to be. There was a lot of shouting, and loudly. I can’t stand that, it doesn’t suit me. As a result, my role was often neutralized.”

At SD Worx they also saw that it did not work with Moolman. But that had less to do with her personality than with her physical abilities, says Anna van der Breggen on the phone. “With our team we always choose the rider with the greatest chances of winning. Sometimes you have to be realistic about what you can and cannot do. I think we sometimes disagreed on that. That is why it is also good that she now drives with a team where she is simply the only female leader. That’s what she was looking for. And that was not possible with us.”

Freed from those chains, Moolman is enjoying herself so much that just before the start of the Tour she decided to continue cycling for another year longer than intended. Under the Dutch team manager Natasha den Ouden, who called Moolman after their first meeting „soulmate”, she feels at home. “They are like family.”

Born in Pretoria, Ashleigh Moolman “didn’t have the easiest childhood,” she says in a second Zoom conversation a few days later. When she was five, her parents divorced. She lived with her mother and saw her father on weekends and holidays. They didn’t have much at home, mother Frances had trouble making ends meet. Those circumstances motivated Moolman to get the most out of her own life, to be independent. “The only way to achieve that in South Africa is through a fancy study and a good salary,” she says. “You can become the best doctor. Because health care is privatized, you get paid very well as a doctor.”

Seriously injured

Moolman was close to never starting a degree. In her senior year of high school, she seriously injured her head in a fall from her horse – she was not wearing a helmet. Doctors said she had suffered so much brain damage that she would probably never go to college. Moolman is eternally grateful to them. Because that diagnosis got her motivated to the core. “Such a near-death experience can make you want to get everything out of life. I became a fighter.”

Moolman was eventually accepted at two renowned universities in South Africa. She could medicine or chemical engineering going to do. She chose the latter because she is analytically strong and has good problem-solving skills. As a cyclist, she now also benefits from this, especially in the tactical field. She can read the course and has a penchant for the numbers on her cycling computer.

With the case I challenge my brain, so that I only have to be physically busy on the bike

At the start of her career, when she rode for the Belgian team Lotto Belisol, she was sometimes accused of thinking too much, being too smart for a rider. She was also very busy with peripheral matters. Wanted to take women’s cycling to the next level. Then she missed an important breakaway during the race, because her mind was elsewhere. But now she knows how to curb that. In Banyoles, Spain, just above the cycling Valhalla Girona, she and her husband run a company for cycling tourists. “With the case I challenge my brain, so that I only have to be physically busy on the bike.”

She started cycling late, only at the age of twenty. Before then, she was on college teams in hockey and track and field, but thought she was “a normal girl.” Until she got a push from her husband, triathlete Carl Pasio, after a mountain bike ride. He had seen how easily she rode uphill and thought she should try her luck as a cyclist. “Because he believed in me, I eventually did too.”

She started winning local races in South Africa, finished on the podium at national championships, won that jersey a few times. When she finished her studies, she decided to go to Europe in the summer months, because the level is much higher there. Since 2018 she lives full-time in Spain with her husband. If she were to take on this adventure, she would do it with full dedication. “I am not someone who just wants to participate in the Olympic Games. Then I want to win too.”

To do something in return

She now has 47 professional victories to her name and was elected South African sportswoman of the year several times. She uses her stage to give back to girls who are struggling in South Africa. In Khayelitsha, a township east of Cape Town, she is building a center with e-bikes. “Those girls there have little. I want them to discover how strong they can be on a bike. So that they also feel strong outside and will be confident in life.”

With that self-confidence, she is now doing well. Especially the way in which she managed to win a one-day race in the Basque Country in mid-May, thanks to the work of her team, contributed to this and made an impression. The Belgian Justine Ghekiere, who only started cycling during the corona pandemic, set her off perfectly. “That was one of the best races I ever rode.”

Moolman will be joined by the experienced Maaike Boogaard, the German Romy Kasper and the Finnish Lotte Hentalla, as well as the young, eager women Justine Ghekiere, Julia Borgström and the surprisingly strong climber Mireia Benito from Italy. She plans to fly in full during the first stages. She wouldn’t mind being in yellow from day one. “The team has the balls to tackle it aggressively and defend the yellow. But we won’t be afraid to hand over the jersey again, if the game demands it from us.”