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."
