Raising the bar: Annemiek van Vleuten, one of cycling’s great revolutionaries, retires

This afternoon in Arnhem, a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands, as Lorena Wiebes secured her 13th sprint victory of the season and her SD Worx teammate and world champion Lotte Kopecky secured the overall title at the Simac Ladies Tour, to add yet another layer of icing to the world champion’s record-smashing season, all eyes were swiftly diverted from the fast-finishing front group to the back of the bunch and further on down the finishing straight – scanning impatiently for the reason they were all there.

Because, five minutes and 31 seconds after Wiebes raised her arms, and in dead last place on the day, appeared Annemiek van Vleuten.

The Movistar rider, who will turn 41 in just under a month, was back where it all began, a short ride away from her home, and where she’d won two overall titles in the past (even though she admitted that the flattish parcours was never her favourite). And at the race she first appeared on the professional scene as a guest way back in 2007 – a relative latecomer to the sport at 24, and a fairly green one at that, crashing out as she did on the very first stage in Berg en Terblijt.

Annemiek van Vleuten crosses the finish for the final time as a professional cyclist 🏁

What a career, what a rider 👏@Movistar_Team | @AvVleuten pic.twitter.com/yOJjgVTt53

— Eurosport (@eurosport) September 10, 2023

This time around, there were no untimely crashes (thankfully). Van Vleuten instead cruised towards the finish line of her last ever professional race, waving her arms to the crowd, soaking in all the adoration and gratitude of a home crowd out in force for one of the true greats, a fitting end to one of cycling’s finest careers.  

104 wins. Two world road race titles. Two world time trial titles. Four editions of the Giro d’Italia, and 16 stages to boot. Three Vuelta wins. Two each at the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, La Course. And a Tour de France yellow jersey.

But anyone who watched Annemiek van Vleuten race a bike will know that mere numbers and lists don’t do her justice.

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

Because while the 40-year-old’s achievements are impressive on paper, on the road they’re even better – and are the reason she cemented herself as one of her generation’s two or three defining figureheads.

That dramatic, come from behind surge to pip perennial rival Anna van der Breggen in Le Grand Bornand at the end of La Course’s greatest ever edition. That jaw-dropping, era defining 105km solo rampage through Yorkshire to win the 2019 worlds. That devastating attack through the Vosges to seal the yellow jersey and with it her place in Tour de France history. That unthinkable, astonishing late surge – fractured elbow and all – to win her second and final worlds in Wollongong last year.

Those moments, those displays of sheer power, bravery, and willpower, defined an era of cycling.

> From Coppi to Van Vleuten: Cycling’s greatest ever seasons

Even this year, as her powers finally began to wane, Van Vleuten dug deep to ensure she went out on the top. If her fourth Giro triumph was one last picture-perfect representation of the dominant AVV, the Vuelta showcased her more dogged, win-at-all-costs side, much to the frustration of the thwarted Demi Vollering. The young pretender would finally seize the crown at the Tour, but Van Vleuten was there to ensure the passing of power wasn’t exactly peaceful.

So, away from the unforgettable moments on the road, what legacy will Van Vleuten leave behind in a sport scarcely recognisable from the one she entered as an injured former footballer back in the late 2000s?

(A.S.O./Fabien Boukla)

She has certainly earned her place on the Mount Rushmore of 21st century women’s cycling. Van Vleuten may lack the sheer number and staggering, unprecedented breadth of wins accumulated by her cannibalistic compatriot Marianne Vos (though to be fair, who really comes close?). But it’s clear that Van Vleuten’s peak period – which arguably began in the wake of her shocking crash at the 2016 Rio Olympics and ended on the slopes of the Tourmalet in July – represents one of the most utterly dominant spells cycling has ever seen.

Vos’s iconic status as an advocate for women’s cycling and equality will also remain unsurpassed, partly due to Van Vleuten’s single-mindedness when it came to improving her own performances first and foremost.

Not that the Dutchwoman hasn’t been a driving force for institutional change, of course. Even as she dissected the puncture that spoiled her hopes of bagging a farewell rainbow jersey at the road race in Glasgow in August, she criticised the lack of high-level autumnal racing for the women’s peloton and called for Il Lombardia, one of the five men’s monuments, to be added to the relatively sparse late-season calendar.

In the end, Van Vleuten left her own indelible mark on cycling.

Just like any long race with a few hills, she grabbed women’s cycling by the scruff of its neck. During the sport’s most marked period of evolution – when the niche, barely noticed, and largely ignored peloton and calendar of the noughties has slowly, bit by bit, morphed into the ambitious and increasingly professional setup of 2023 – Van Vleuten was its most prominent revolutionary.

(A.S.O./Thomas Maheux)

By training, thinking, and racing with the dedication and professionalism which – thanks to the sport’s fragile ecosystem – was more the exception than the norm in 2008, Van Vleuten both set the standard and raised the bar for what being a pro women’s cyclist means. In her wake, and thanks to her influence, has come longer, harder, and more prestigious races, and a generation of young and hungry talent following in her wheel tracks.

If you want a snapshot of the Van Vleuten effect, just rewatch the stage that, ironically, sealed her fate at this year’s Tour de France – through the dense fog on the Col du Tourmalet, one of the sport’s most revered places and fiercest climbs, as heir apparent Demi Vollering forged yet more new ground in the long struggle for progress.

An empty Van Vleuten, eyes hollow, style even more ragged than her usual blunt force methodology, may have reached the summit of the Tourmalet four minutes after Vollering. But as a new era emerged through the Pyrenean fog, it’s clear that the sport Van Vleuten entered as a green 24-year-old at the Holland Ladies Tour all those years ago has changed utterly – and she was at the coalface of that change.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Annemiek van Vleuten (@annemiekvanvleuten)

“I could write books about how women’s cycling has changed since I started,” she told reporters, including road.cc, at the Glashow worlds.

“I started in 2007, 2008 was my first UCI team [alongside Ellen van Dijk in the Vrienden van het Platteland squad] – we travelled in a camper van, with all the bikes in the back, and we travelled to Sweden in that camper van. Crazy times.

“I’m super proud of being part of the whole development of women’s cycling, and I think I helped to raise the bar a little bit, to make the sport more professional.

“I was the first one to go to altitude, now everyone’s going to altitude. I’m happy to have been part of the journey, and to leave the sport now that it’s on a super high level. I’m sure it will take more steps and continue to develop.

“When I started it was an amateur sport, and now it’s a professional sport. I’m proud to have been a little part of that.”