There was a time, around the mid-2000s, when Annemiek van Vleuten was living in cramped student accommodation, working a 32-hour week, and racing on a salary of just €100 a month. If it’s tough at the top, as the old adage goes, then it’s a hell of a lot tougher at the bottom.
Almost a decade later and the 35-year-old is striding confidently through the Hilton Hotel in downtown Adelaide, greeting fans and mingling with the cycling public who affectionately call out, ‘Annemiek’ before instinctively positioning themselves for selfies.
That previous world, when Van Vleuten was just starting out on the Vrienden van het Platteland team, must seem like a galaxy away. Now, the world time trial champion is at the pinnacle of the sport but, as she tells Cyclingnews’ Daniel Benson, she’s far from finished and just as determined as ever to build on her ever-improving legacy.
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This year, Van Vleuten will embark on perhaps her most challenging season yet as she aims to dovetail her love of road racing and time trialling with ambitions of success on the track at the World Championships. Given the increasing specialisation and competitiveness that has developed in women’s cycling, it will be no easy venture but the Mitchelton-Scott leader is anything but fazed.
"I only want to take on a challenge if it’s really serious," she says with a smile that belies her undoubted hunger.
So, this year Van Vleuten will use the early-season races in Australia – she is currently racing the Herald Sun Tour – as building blocks before switching to individual pursuit preparations in February. Her track plans mean that she will miss the majority of the Classics – barring the Tour of Flanders – before returning for a serious tilt at the Giro Rosa and then a three-pronged attack at the UCI Road World Championships in the autumn, in which she will race the team time trial, the individual time trial and then the road race. She is nothing if not eager.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/van-vleuten-the-relentless-rainbow-dreamer
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