Annemiek van Vleuten has recently retired from a sparkling cycling career, and as she settles into her life after pro sports, she looks back on her most memorable moments which include some of the sport’s most dramatic victories.
Since joining the pro ranks in 2008, Van Vleuten's name has become synonymous with her aggressive racing style, audacious solo attacks and winning record that spans Spring Classics, Grand Tours, World Championships and Olympic Games.
Her list of accolades is extensive, but we can all agree that some of the highlights of her career include the overall victory at the Tour de France Femmes, four overall titles at the Giro d'Italia Women, three overall wins at the now-called La Vuelta Femenina, two wins at the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Strade Bianche, the two road race and time trial victories at the World Championships and gold in the time trial at the Olympic Games.
There are numerous big and small victories in between that have added to what has become one of the most successful cycling careers of all time. However, in her own words as part of an interview published on YouTube by her Movistar Team ahead of her final race of her career, Van Vleuten has selected the seven victories that have meant the most to her in order, from seventh to first.
7. 2021 Tour of Flanders
Exactly ten years after her first victory at the 2011 Tour of Flanders on the streets of Meerbeke, Van Vleuten won her second title, this time in Oudenaarde, at the 2021 Tour of Flanders. While wearing the European Champion’s jersey, Van Vleuten attacked from a small group of favourites on the final climb with 14km to go, before extending her gap from seven seconds at the top of the Paterberg to 25 seconds at the finish. From the chase group, Lisa Brennauer (then Ceratizit-WNT) beat Grace Brown (then BikeExchange) in the sprint for second place.
After crossing the finish line, Van Vleuten said, “I had been hoping for this for ten years after my 2011 victory, and now it all fell into place. I am very proud, especially for my new team Movistar, the girls worked very hard for me, I was the number-one leader and could finish it off like this … I think we are going to celebrate big tonight.”
It was van Vleuten’s first season with Movistar in 2021, a team that she helped build into one of the top-ranked squads in the world upon her retirement at the end of 2023. “The [2021 Tour of Flanders] win with Movistar. I saw all the happy faces, all the team I remember was waiting for me. I could feel that I did something really nice there with my team,” Van Vleuten said when looking back on that victory.
In previous interviews with Cyclingnews, Van Vleuten has often said that women's professional cycling is hardly recognisable from when she first began racing 16 years ago. The trajectory of the sport's progress has almost run simultaneously with her own successful career – she's both watched and helped it to transform.
She often references her first victory at the 2011 Tour of Flanders when discussing the progress of women’s cycling over the course of her career, particularly the introduction of live television requirements as part of the Women’s WorldTour. She compared her experience of winning the Tour of Flanders in 2011 to winning the same event ten years later in 2021, as being almost night and day.
"To go from no TV coverage in 2011 to people now asking for small races to be covered. There was a one-second finish shot when I won my first Tour of Flanders because, by accident, a camera was already set up there for the finish of the guys' race later in the day. There was no television coverage in 2011," she remembered, a situation which changed with the Flanders Classics commitment to creating visibility, parity, and changing attitudes in pro racing through its initiative Closing the Gap.
6. 2018 La Course by Le Tour de France
We’ve lost count of how many times Van Vleuten has stunned with a remarkable victory.
However, it was her hard-fought win at the 2018 La Course by Le Tour de France, with clips from the live broadcast that went viral across social media platforms, that captured global attention and the hearts of the cycling community.
“2018 La Course, and the battle between Anna [van der Breggen] and me ... because that was such a huge entertainment for people to watch, such an exciting race,” Van Vleuten remembered.
The 2018 La Course by Le Tour de France, an event that became the stepping-stone for the Tour de France Femmes, took place in July in the Alps, on a 118km route linking Annecy and Le Grand Bornand.
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (then Cervélo-Bigla) made her move on the one-day race’s penultimate climb - Col de Romme - attacking solo with 33 kilometres to go. She was caught near the top of the Colombière climb by Van Vleuten (then Mitchelton-Scott), Anna van der Breggen (then Boels Dolmans) and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (then Cervelo-Bigla).
Van der Breggen jumped over the top of the Colombière and crested the pass with a ten-second gap on Van Vleuten. However, Van Vleuten held her rival in her sight on the descent into Le Grand-Bornand.
Van Vleuten powered through the final kilometre until she was just a whisker away from catching a struggling Van der Breggen on the steep 200 metres to the line. Van Vleuten gave it one last push in a big gear, and as Van der Breggen faltered with 50 meters to go, she sealed a magnificent victory.
5. 2017 World Championships in Bergen
Van Vleuten claimed her first elite women’s world title in the individual time trial at the 2017 UCI Road World Championships in Bergen. She completed the 21.1km course in a time of 28:50, 12 seconds faster than compatriot Van der Breggen while Australia’s Katrin Garfoot rounded out the podium in third, 19 seconds down.
The victory marked a turning point in her career, particularly after her horrific crash at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro that left her with a severe concussion and spinal fractures.
"I still cannot believe it. This season I've surprised myself with what I can do. To be world champion in the time trial, I never thought I’d be able to do this. This year I started to believe in it and to be able to finish it off is incredible,” Van Vleuten said after the victory in Bergen.
"To be an athlete, there are ups and downs, but the downs make the ups even more beautiful, I think. It's also really beautiful without the crash in Rio, but this makes the story really special."
Van Vleuten went on to win a second consecutive time trial title at the 2018 Worlds in Innsbruck, along with two more world titles in the road race at the 2019 Worlds in Yorkshire and 2022 Worlds in Wollongong.
She said the win in Bergen was also special, not only because it marked a comeback from the Rio crash, but because it continued the upward trajectory of a season that included a first-ever podium at the Giro Donne, a race she went on to win four times.
“Bergen 2017, because it was a turnaround in my career, because that was the first time where I did win something big. After the Rio Olympics in 2016, where I misjudged a corner, and also that year, I was really close to winning the Giro d'Italia, and I was 'sleeping' when we had an echelons stage. I had my mother there at the finish line in Bergen, so it was a really nice moment,” Van Vleuten said of her time trial victory in Bergen.
4. 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games
Racing for the Dutch national team, Van Vleuten won two medals at the Olympic Games in Tokyo; a gold in the individual time trial and a silver in the road race. Although both performances were memorable for their own reasons, it was the gold medal that Van Vleuten will cherish the most.
She triumphed in the women's individual time trial at the Tokyo Olympics to take gold with a blistering performance after totally dominating the race of truth. It was a victory made even sweeter by the fact that just three days earlier she had celebrated when she mistook silver for gold when crossing the line in the elite women’s road race , which was won by solo breakaway rider from Austria Anna Kiesenhofer.
In the time trial, Van Vleuten was the fastest at every checkpoint throughout the 22.1km course and finished with a winning time of 30:13 beating runner-up Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) by 56 seconds and compatriot Anna van der Breggen by 1:02.
"I knew after the road race that I was in super, super shape and everyone was talking about everything else and what happened in the road," Van Vleuten said at the finish line of the time trial where she secured her second medal in the Olympic Games.
"Almost no one was talking about the performance that I had in the road [race]. If that performance had won me the gold medal then they would have been saying I’d had an amazing race but I closed myself from social media and we had an evaluation in the team. The message that I kept remembering in my head after the road race was that I was in super shape and that I was better than ever. I didn’t check Twitter, I didn’t check any social media, I just took that message into my preparation.
"I’m not a perfect athlete but I have a gold medal. I always thought that you need to be a freak to win a gold medal but I’m not a freak. That’s not necessary and today is a really nice bonus in my journey. I can’t believe this medal is around my neck and it’s very special to be an Olympic champion.”
3. 2022 Tour de France Femmes
Van Vleuten etched her name into the history books as the winner of the 2022 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, an event that marked the rebirth of the women's Tour de France after a more than 30-year hiatus.
She had gone into the eight-day race as the favourite but faced the uncertainty that went along with an unexpected stomach bug that hit her body on the first stage in Paris. She pushed through the physical symptoms and kept herself within reach of the overall race lead.
When the illness subsided, she launched a rampage across back-to-back mountain stages where she soloed to wins atop Le Markstein, where she took the yellow jersey, and then atop La Super Planche des Belles Filles to secure the coveted overall victory.
"It's actually a dream that comes true - winning in yellow at the top. It was not an easy stage, it was not an easy week. It was a super big rollercoaster for me. To finish in yellow solo - the best way," Van Vleuten said at the top of the gravel slopes of La Super Planche des Belles Filles.
The first edition of the new version of the women's Tour de France was a resounding success in terms of racing, but also branding and marketability. The media, fan presence, and interest spoke volumes of the race's popularity internationally. For this reason, Van Vleuten places a higher importance on this win.
"The Tour de France is above the Olympics because it had a huge impact. When I came home it exceeded my expectations on how many people enjoyed the race, and followed the race. How much impact winning the Tour de France had, and how big the Tour de France was," Van Vleuten said.
2. 2019 World Championships in Yorkshire
Van Vleuten won her first road race world title with an incredible 105km solo attack at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships that finished in Harrogate
She caught the peloton off guard on the exposed Lofthouse climb and, despite a fervent chase by some pre-race favourites including Great Britain's Lizzie Deignan, Van Vleuten managed to carve out over a two-minute lead and claimed the solo victory ahead of compatriot Van der Breggen and Australia's Amanda Spratt.
"It was not actually planned, I wanted to go hard on the climb, I think that was good for our team," Van Vleuten said at the finish line in Harrogate.
"Then when I saw I had a gap, then my coach said ‘continue now’. It was a crazy plan. It was all a little bit crazy. I’m a little crazy. I train a lot and I think that also helped me a lot today, to be ready for such a big effort. People know I train a lot of hours on the bike and that helped me today.
"There’s so many emotions; my mother’s here and that’s special for me, my father a little bit too, because I was also wearing the earrings I had in Rio."
Van Vleuten said that it was difficult to decide which of her two road race world titles was her favourite, Yorkshire in 2019 or Wollongong in 2022, as she is proud of them both.
"My number one victory? It's hard to choose between Wollongong and Yorkshire because they are so different. I'm really proud of Yorkshire; how I prepared, and I was too gutsy to attack with 105km to go. It was epic," she said.
1. 2022 World Championships in Wollongong
After crashing and breaking her elbow in the team time trial relay, Van Vleuten had all but counted herself out of contention for the road race at the 2022 UCI World Championships in Wollongong.
She lined up, believing that she would be of some help to her teammates, and she raced through the pain and discomfort of her injured elbow that was wrapped in gauze and tape for the duration of the 164.3-kilometre event, from Helensburgh to Wollongong.
The race came down to a re-grouped 13 riders and Van Vleuten, who'd spent the day working for teammate Marianne Vos, suddenly soared away with a seated acceleration in the final kilometre and held off a charging Lotte Kopecky to claim the second road race world title of her career. It was clear by the look of joyful disbelief on her face that she'd even shocked herself.
Van Vleuten said that it was a victory that spoke to her physical and mental capacity as a complete rider, which summed up her 16-year career in professional cycling.
"The Wollongong victory says a lot about my character. It's accepting that you have a broken elbow. Trying to make the best out of it. Re-watching it, it's like, the last kilometre of Wollongong still gives me goosebumps," Van Vleuten said.
"I can really feel the emotions of that whole week, of disappointment, and it's maybe the whole of my career summarised into one week. It came all of that together."
She also said the victory forced her to think in impossibilities which is what helped lead to her career-best world championships triumph. “I think maybe this is the best victory in my whole career," she said.
