Annemiek van Vleuten has found the answers

Annemiek van Vleuten she was no longer used to spending a spring with so many questions and very few comforting answers. He had been scraping together and saving at least a little bit of satisfaction since 2015 already at the beginning of the season: a few victories, some excellent placements in major races, more than one success in those races that are everyone’s goal, but that few win them, only the strongest: Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liege, Valkenburg Hills Classic (which was highly sought after until it was held), Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria, Strade Bianche.

Eight years in cycling is a lot, sometimes a whole career. His is much longer, it began in 2008, at the age of twenty-six, late but you can understand it: first there was football, played at a good level and above all the study of animal sciences at the University of Wageningen.

Eight years is a long time, especially if you rack up one podium after another, many victories, while you have to deal with champions like Marianne Vos and Anna van der Breggen on the pedals, who in the best years won a lot, almost everything. And they are many especially if the springs behind them are forty and in October the years will become forty-one. She wondered if she still had something to give, if she hadn’t been wrong to continue one more year, if it hadn’t been better to close last year, at the end of an amazing season that ended with the world champion jersey worn in Wollongong (with a broken elbow). She answered that only time would tell, that it was worth waiting a bit before drawing conclusions, facing the weight of the decisions taken. On the other hand, she had already had disappointments in road racing, because her legs seemed to run well despite the lower than expected results (but still not bad if you weren’t wearing the world champion jersey), because her best is the he had always given in stage races.

In the last two months the answer has come. It was really worth the wait. In May, Annemiek van Vleuten won the Vuelta Femenina ahead of Demi Vollering – who had dominated in the spring in the classics, from Strade Bianche to Liège-Bastogne-Liège – and Gaia Realini. Yesterday she finished the Giro d’Italia in the pink jersey with three stage victories and almost four minutes ahead of Juliette Labous and 4’23” over Gaia Realini. The second and third combined lived five years older than her.

Third Vuelta won in a row. Second consecutive Giro d’Italia won. From 23 to 30 July there is the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes. The first, a year ago, she had won. Were to repeat it would be the second hat-trick in a row.

It was worth the wait. And it’s worth waiting for the Tour de France Femmes to see what happens. To see if Annemiek van Vleuten will once again be able to make her bike gait magnetic and successful.

These are busy years for cycling. A very fast and abundant stratification of memories of shots, enthusiasms and joys on pedals.

This is how it goes in men’s cycling, thanks to races that have become postmodern and exciting rather than old-fashioned. Thanks to the duels between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, as well as this last Tour de France, between Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, for Remco Evenepoel and Julien Alaphilippe, for Tom Pidcock and Egan Bernal (hoping he can return to high levels after risking death)

This is how it goes in women’s cycling, thanks also to Annemiek van Vleuten. And to opponents capable of worrying her, annoying her, then being beaten for showing class on a bicycle. In recent years we have witnessed exciting races, great demonstrations of strength, cannibalistic dominations and uncertain races right to the end. And this thanks and sometimes in spite of Annemiek van Vleuten.

There are still a few months to go and the Annemiek van Vleuten era will come to an end. There are still a few races left to continue that incredible novel of victories that made her a runner that will be impossible to forget. There is a Tour de France to make his career even more incredible. There is another World Cup to win, other audiences to greet, many more applauses to receive. Because there is always and only applause for her, for her who was beaten and became unbeatable. Or maybe not. Maybe not unbeatable, maybe just hard to beat. “I’m a human being, I have limits, I make mistakes, I mess up. But then I recover, I raise myself. To pedal you need above all good will. This is the thing that must never be missing together with passion “. Annemiek van Vleuten still has it in packs.