‘I was finally racing like I was 18 again’ – Daniek Hengeveld grasps winning moment at Women’s Tour Down Under

When Daniek Hengeveld was just 18 and taking on her first UCI race in the elite ranks, she almost delivered the biggest of upsets on stage 1 of the Healthy Ageing Tour, just caught on the run into the line after she took a last lap flyer. The ambitious break didn’t work back then –  but on Friday with her new team, Ceratizit-WNT at the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under, it did.

In her first race with Ceratizit-WNT, Hengeveld foiled the plans of the sprinters on stage 1 to take out her first Women’s WorldTour win, bouncing back from a crash at the Tour of Britain last year that left her out for months and battling to find her feet.

“I lost a little bit of confidence after the last two years and, well, I was finally racing like I was 18 again,” Hengeveld told reporters after the stage. “I was like – Oh, this is why I race. It’s really nice.”