Annemiek van Vleuten blog: You can't win the Giro Rosa alone

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The six-rider Mitchelton-Scott team that won the 2019 Giro Rosa with Annemiek van Vleuten(Image credit: Getty Images)

It's an excellent feeling to set a target, create a plan with my team and my coach, and then nail it - I won the Giro Rosa!

We went on to celebrate our success with a lovely team dinner in Udine on Sunday night. It was essential for me to commemorate this win together. When I looked at all the people who were seated at our table, I truly felt that everyone contributed something to this victory. I was so pleased that we could all be at one table together, and what’s pretty incredible is that we have more staff than riders!

To give you an idea of what it takes to support a team at the Giro Rosa, Mitchelton-Scott had 14 staff members, not including the riders. We had two sports directors (Alejandro and Martin), three soigneurs (Miha, Nadia and Mattia), two mechanics (Nico and Pat), two bus drivers (Otazu and Jacopo), two photographers (Sara and Luc), along with a videographer (Oliver), our press officer (Lucy) and a physiotherapist (Ellen).

Spratty was my roommate, and she was always by my side, and to have such an experienced teammate helped me to stay relaxed and confident. She is also a perfect on-road captain. I never needed to stress out about tactical decisions on the road. She was in charge of coaching the other girls on the road a bit, too, which is very helpful. As a roommate she is also great. Both of us have similar focus and nerves, and that works well for me. For three years now we have a kind of 'stretching and foam-roller competition' going on in our room. Neither of us are very disciplined with this routine normally, unless we are 100 per cent focussed (like at the Giro Rosa), and so we both tend to postpone our stretching sometimes. In this case, however, the one who stretched first always reminded the other to stretch, in a funny and polite way.

She finished her first Grand Tour. It's so nice to see that, especially after having a bad experience last year. It's refreshing to see her improving her skills! She was always there to make the climbs hard and with this sacrificing her own possibility to test her legs to see how she might go on the uphill finishes herself. Lucy also went with Spratty, Martin and Nico to recon the stages in Friuli (stage 7, 8 and 9). Because of my National Championships, I was not able to recon those stages. It’s awesome that they did the recon and provided me with the information. They even made videos so that we wouldn’t be surprised about the steepness of some climbs (such as the finish of stage 9) or the surprising, cobbled, narrow, crazy climbs (such as on stage 7).

This was the third time that Roy supported me in the Giro Rosa. She has a big engine and so great to have when there is a need to ride in front. Sarah is always there, in position, and 100 per cent committed to every single job. She's also an essential ingredient for our pre-race positive energy and laughs. When I am focussed and sometimes a bit nervous ahead of the stage, it’s relaxing to hear that the other girls are having some laughs and fun. Sometimes I noticed that I miss a lot of good pre-race fun when I watched our team videos the next day. Everyday, when we’re going to sign on, we request a song, which will be our song for that stage of the Giro Rosa. Roy loved a horrible song called 'Level Up,' and in the beginning no one liked it, but she played it so often in the team bus, from day three on, it gave us a lot of pre-race energy and laughs - "5-4-3-2-1-Level up" and more 'super bad' lyrics were involved in this song by Ciara.

I can't believe how eager and committed someone can be to work 100 per cent for the team! She even went to train at altitude to be in the best possible form for her role as a domestique at this Giro Rosa. This kind of commitment gave me added pressure to be at my very best and extra motivation to perform well. She has a big engine and when you need someone you can rely on 100 per cent or if something needs to be done: Moniek is there. You will never find her riding in the back of the peloton unless her job was done, and she would be there in order to take maximum recovery so that she could do her job again the next day.

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team Women) is a two-time winner of the Giro d'Italia Donne, a two-time winner of the individual time trial at the World Championships, both in 2017 and 2018, and winner of the road race title at the World Championships in 2019. You can visit her website here.

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