cycling, Van Vleuten, the queen of the Giro d’Italia Women who always pushes the limits

The French Juliette Labous, second at 3’56”, is 24 years old; the Abruzzo Gaia Realini, third at 4’23”, is 22. Total: 46 years old. Well, the pink jersey Annemiek Van Vleuten, triumphant for the fourth time in the Women’s Giro d’Italia, has 40: she was born on October 8, 1982, two years before Vincenzo Nibali. Yet in women’s cycling there is none of her like her. None has marked her world like this Dutch woman, who discovered cycling at 24 for rehabilitation after two meniscus injuries. She had another life before: horse riding and football. She graduated in epidemiology, she started working in the office. “At the time I could only swim and ride a bike. No swimming, too boring; I liked the bike because I could be in the fresh air”. So she Annemiek finds a club, she starts cycling on the track because she works during the day, and then in 2007, at the age of 25, she begins her cycling career. And she pushes the boundaries.

Bike as discovery She trains with the men, rides 200 kilometers and returns to the hotel in tears, from physical suffering. He spends weeks and weeks at altitude in Livigno, and months in Colombia. Road bikes and mountain bikes, cycling for her is a daily discovery. She goes on a bike tour from Portugal to Spain with brothers Adam and Simon Yates. She is the first cyclist to conquer the Zoncolan in the Giro d’Italia, in 2018, and she takes only eight minutes longer than Chris Froome who wins among the men. At the Tour, she tames Coppi and Bartali’s Izoard. In 2020, during the pandemic, she does more kilometers (between training and competitions) than Wout Van Aert: 32,949 against 31,775. Always in the words of her legend, the Dutch football legend Johan Cruijff: “Attacking is the best way to defend yourself”.

Curriculum Vitae Since 2021 he has been racing with the Spanish Movistar. Annemiek Van Vleuten conquers the Women’s Giro d’Italia for the fourth time after the triumphs of 2018, 2019 and 2022, and she does so with the world champion’s jersey. In total he hits 16 stages. The curriculum is impressive: Olympic time trial in Tokyo 2021, 2 World Championships in line (2019 and 2022) and 2 time trial (2017 and 2018), Tour de France 2022, 3 Vuelta (2021, 2022 and 2023), and then the big classics: 2 Strade Bianche (2019 and 2020), 2 Tours of Flanders (2011 and 2021), 2 Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2019 and 2022). For her, the goal will now be an encore in the Tour de France, which will start on July 23 from Clermont Ferrand to end after 8 stages on July 30 with an individual time trial in Pau. Will you retire at the end of the season? She says yes, we are not sure.