Anna van der Breggen is going on training rides every morning before each stage of the Tour de France Femmes. She still looks every bit the professional athlete as she rolls out at sunrise in her SD Worx-Protime kit, but the Dutch rider hasn’t stood on the start line of a bike race since September 2021. Instead, when her mornings at the Tour de France Femmes are completed, she changes from lycra into a team-branded polo shirt and sits behind the steering wheel of the SD Worx team car.
When she made the announcement three years ago that she was stepping away from being a professional bike rider after a career in which she won La Flèche Wallonne seven times, the World Championships twice and an Olympic gold medal, many were shocked. She was only aged 31, and Van der Breggen was still arguably the best rider in the women’s peloton when she retired. It’s fair to say she bowed out at the very top.
“In the beginning, I was really happy that I quit after so many years and that I didn’t have the pressure of big races and Championships,” Van der Breggen explains, speaking on the penultimate day of the Tour de France Femmes.
“I also think my body was pretty much finished at that point. I don’t know why exactly, maybe I was too much in training or it was too much mentally, but I could feel motivation was gone which is when I knew I should stop because nothing was working anymore.”
Image: Tornanti
A few months ago when SD Worx-Protime hinted on their social media that they had big news to come, few expected the gravity of their announcement. It was in a simple, short statement, that the Dutch team told the world that their superstar would be pinning on a race number again in 2025. After three years behind the steering wheel, Van der Breggen is coming back to the Women’s WorldTour as a bike rider.
“I now feel that I really like cycling, and I still have the possibility to do it. I think slowly, race by race, the feeling was growing again, like I have choices and I can make choices.” Van der Breggen says. “It’s not that I don’t like this job. I really enjoy doing it, but being an athlete is something different. I saw this side of the working life, which is good, but I also know the other side so I made the decision, one more time, to try and go for it.”
During her 12-year career, it was never possible for Van der Breggen to compete in the Tour de France Femmes – a race that she has now watched three times from the…