After her barnstorming solo raid in the Yorkshire Dales to claim her maiden World Championships victory in 2019, Annemiek van Vleuten had only 15 race days in the rainbow jersey. But after the “best victory in my whole career” at the Wollongong Worlds, the 39-year-old now has the perfect curtain call to her career, racing her final season in the pro peloton clad in rainbows.
“That is the best,” a delighted Van Vleuten said in the UCI Road World Championships post-race press conference.
“That was also why I was so super disappointed after I broke my elbow. I also knew the course and when they announced the course for next year, I was already sneakily looking at it and how many altitude metres there will be. So I had the feeling that this is my biggest chance.
“So now that I am here and World Champion next year, and can wear the jersey all the time, it’s quite a story.”
As an ephemeral rainbow emerged above the finish line in Wollongong following an afternoon of rain and sun showers, an enduring rainbow jersey awaited Van Vleuten at the finish line.
“I think maybe this is my best victory in my whole career. With the whole week that I have been through, I don’t know. Yeah it is quite a story,” the Dutch rider said in the winner’s press conference, with long pauses punctuating her responses as she came to terms with her victory.
Van Vleuten’s first season in the rainbow jersey was cut short, first by the pandemic and then by a crash at the Giro Rosa that ended with a broken wrist on the eve of her Worlds defence. A Worlds in which Anna van der Breggen won a year before retiring to ensure a final rainbow season. A feat now emulated by compatriot Van Vleuten.
“That is the best [thing], that every day you have the reminder that you are World Champion,” said Van Vleuten who turns forty in two weeks today. “To take it this year is better than next year, so now I can enjoy it all the time. When I was World Champion and we had the Covid situation I could not race a lot of races in my World Championships jersey. [But] I still trained a lot in my jersey.”
“To race in the rainbow makes me really proud.”
‘Focus on what is still possible’
On Wednesday afternoon, Van Vleuten was laying on the ground in shock. In a split second, her World Championships appeared over after a mechanical caused her to crash less than 20 pedal strokes into the Mixed Relay TTT. Not only was her immediate race over, but any chance of competitively racing…
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