Only three years ago, Anne Knijnenburg was a two-time Dutch champion in athletics. In 2021, she won gold in the 1,500m race in the indoor championships, and the following summer she won the 800m title. She was one of the Netherlands’ big running hopes. “From the moment I won the 1,500m race aged 19 against elites, I thought, ‘OK, I’m good, I can have big ambitions.’ And then when I became Dutch champion I really saw an Olympic future,” she says.
But then everything came tumbling down – at least from a running perspective. “I had a couple of injuries, the worst one being a stress fracture in my foot which took a long time to recover from,” Knijnenburg says. “I eventually stopped because of a hamstring injury that was taking too long to get back from.” Naturally, Knijnenburg was despondent. But having grown up with triathlon parents, and having competed in a variety of sports herself as a junior including heptathlon, Knijnenburg wasn’t going to pause her sporting dreams. Instead, she was going to repackage them as cycling dreams. Three years on, at the end of the 2025 season, Knijnenburg topped the GC in a WorldTour race – the Tour of Chongming Island in China. “It might not be the biggest race, but it really meant a lot to me,” she smiles.
From running to cycling
Running, to Knijnenburg, is the truest judge of an athlete’s condition. “I always loved the simplicity of it – you put on some shoes and you go for a run,” Knijnenburg says, speaking with Rouleur by phone after her end-of-season holiday in Italy. “It’s you against you. You just have to be the best version of yourself, and it’s about going as fast as you can. It’s a bit dumb actually!”
Even now as a pro cyclist, Knijnenburg continues to embrace running. “I still run two or three times a week,” she says. “Most of the time I do 6-8km, but in the winter I like to do long runs of 15-20km, because I think they make you super strong. If you go running for an hour you can do a lot, but if you go cycling for an hour it’s basically a rest day. It’s good to train the body in different ways, including the lungs and hearts, and it’s especially good for bone health.”
Shock on Knijnenburg’s face as she becomes Dutch 1,500m indoor champion in 2021. Image: Andre Weening/BSR Agency/Getty Images
When Knijnenburg had to hang her competitive running spikes up aged 20, the idea of a life on the bike didn’t even cross her mind….