July 25, 2022
Van Vleuten is virtually unstoppable when the road starts to go up. What can other teams do about it?
Annemiek van Vleuten is the bookies’ favourite to win the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. The Dutchwoman has incredible palmares already: two world championship titles and an Olympic gold medal to name just a few. In the Giro d’Italia Donne a few weeks ago she was untouchable in the general classification fight, taking two stage wins along the way.
The Movistar rider’s climbing ability is what really makes her stand out from her rivals. When the road starts to rise, Van Vleuten seems to just push more and more watts. She doesn’t do it effortlessly, in fact to watch her is almost painful: she shows her effort on her body as she rocks and rolls and on her face as she grits her teeth. Looking at her, it’s almost as if Van Vleuten is constantly struggling on the climbs, yet the gaps behind her just grow out as she labours on, leaving her rivals struggling in her wake.
Elisa Longo Borghini, a rider for Trek-Segafredo, once famously described the Movistar rider as an “alien” due to her superhuman ability to speed up mountains. For the Italian, and many riders who are targeting yellow in the inaugural edition of the Tour de France Femmes, Annemiek van Vleuten is the biggest obstacle in their path to claiming yellow atop La Super Planche des Belles Filles when the race comes to a close on Sunday. The question on everyone’s lips is: how can we beat the best climber in the world?
“She has not shown many weaknesses so far, as you know. There’s a little bit of hope that she might have a bad day, like everyone might sometimes have in a Tour, she’s human,” said Ronny Lauke, team director for Canyon//SRAM racing. The German team has Kasia Niewiadoma in their ranks, a serious contender for the overall in this race
“We can put the pressure on from the team side with the team that we have chosen here, because the majority of the riders we brought, they excel better in undulating or hilly areas. We want to try our strategy through the depth of the team and have an aggressive race style,” continued Lauke. It’s a strategy which has paid off so far – Niewiadoma finished third on stage two of the race and gained time on Van Vleuten in the process.
For Niewiadoma herself, the key to getting the better of…