Annemiek van Vleuten's path to four Giro d'Italia Donne victories

Annemiek van Vleuten claims the maglia rosa for the first time in 2018 (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

Annemiek van Vleuten may have looked completely in command right through the race as she took her fourth and final victory at the Giro d’Italia Donne this year, though it's been a long road to the top step for the rider who is set to retire at the end of 2023.

It was in fact 13 years ago that the Dutch rider first stepped onto the start line of the race, that year beginning in Muggia, within the north-eastern town of Trieste, and through those early years of her cycling career, she may not have ever imagined that as the end of it neared she’d be stepping up to the top step in the maglia rosa for a fourth time.

Being a Dutch rider and racing for a team based in your home country, had some advantages and also perhaps some disadvantages for Van Vleuten. She was, undoubtedly racing alongside the best in those pivotal early years of her development at the Nederland bloeit cycling team that morphed into Rabobank. However, that also, meant that it was a difficult task even for a highly talented rider to stand out.

Even in 2014 when Van Vleuten took her first two victories at the race, one in the short and flat prologue in Caserta and another in a road stage – her teammate Vos doubled that stage victory tally. As far as the GC was concerned Van Vleuten also took a big step up that year, finishing eighth. Yet she was still only her Rabobank-Liv team’s fourth-best finisher. The squad had swept the overall podium that year with Vos taking her third win, Ferrand Prévot coming second and Anna van der Breggen – who would begin her winning run at the race the next year – coming third.

The succession of tough climbs greeting riders in the final 30km of the race meant the world’s best climbers lined up with dreams of gold but over the top of the final 9km climb, it was unexpectedly Van Vleuten who was racing down toward the finish line out front and alone. No, it didn’t end well, with the rider who had looked to be on her way to victory crashing badly on the technical descent, but what came before then had her team, sports director of the time Gene Bates and the rider herself looking at her future prospects from an entirely different perspective.

“The experience I had at the Rio Olympic Games made me think again about my goals for 2017,” said the rider in a team media release from 2016. “I never thought I would be able to follow the best climbers uphill and even drop them. At 33 years of age, I realised I have talents that I was not aware of. Therefore, next season with ORICA-AIS I will focus more on uphill races and time trialling.”

It was a solid start for the team debut at the race, with a third in the opening team time trial and then it was straight into a stage win for Van Vleuten on the second day and another in the individual time trial victory on stage 5. Plus, with the unequivocal support of the team and a strong ally in Australian Amanda Spratt, the Dutch rider continued to deliver solid results through the race, landing on the final podium with third, a result that clearly announced that a new contender had arrived.

Two-time winner Anna van der Breggen wasn’t lining up in 2018 and after the podium performance of the year before Van Vleuten had transformed into one of the favourites. It was a steady climb up the ranks, starting with a runner-up spot in the team trial and delivering another on the stage 6 summit finish to Gerola Alta, where she finished behind teammate Spratt who stepped into pink. The stage 7 individual time trial was when it was time for Van Vleuten to don the maglia rosa, and once she did there was no giving it up. Van Vleuten just kept stretching her lead by winning the show-stopper stage 9, with its Monte Zoncolan finish. Then for good measure also claimed one last victory by launching solo on the punchy final climb which peaked less than 10km from the line.

Van Vleuten then lined up in 2019 as defending champion, but with Van der Breggen returning to the fray the anticipation was high for a close-run battle. The Australian team and rider leading it, however, were now an experienced and well-oiled squad in the pursuit of the overall and by stage 5 Van Vleuten was back in pink. She finished the race 3:45 ahead of Van der Breggen and with another two stage victories at the race to her name. Spratt was also on the podium for a second year.

Van Vleuten’s final year at the Giro d’Italia Donne with the team that had been so pivotal in her development as a maglia rosa contender was 2020 and she had again looked on track for overall victory, stepping into pink right from stage 2. However, a crash on stage 8 which left her with a wrist fracture spelled the end of her race. The next time she would line up it would be in Movistar colours.

In 2021 Van Vleuten missed the Giro d'Italia Donne for only the second time since 2010 as she turned her focus to the Tokyo Olympics, where she claimed gold in the time trial and silver in the road race. That meant 2022 was the first year she lined up at the race with Movistar. There was clearly no doubt about the strength of the rider who had now spent years sweeping up world titles, Olympic medals and victory at so many of the calendar's most prestigious races but the question was how would the change of team impact her prospects?

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.