Van Vleuten up against the new international guard

“It’s not easy anymore to win and that makes it even better,” Annemiek van Vleuten said after she capped off her “best spring ever” with a victory in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes.

“My driving force is not the win,” Van Vleuten assured on Sunday, an hour after powering to victory at the last spring Classic of the 2022 UCI Women’s WorldTour. The Dutch leader of Movistar Team Women is looking for self-improvement, she explained, and she could only be delighted by those she had witnessed this spring in her own performances as well as in her rivals.

“It’s my best spring ever, in terms of results, but also if I look at my numbers, the power outputs, the times on Strava”, Van Vleuten insisted after a stellar ride to the Ardent City. “I was never so fast on Mur de Huy, but Marta Cavalli was faster than me. The level is growing and there are more girls, more countries, more teams able to win. That’s a sign of development in women’s cycling.”

Her solo victory in Liège might have appeared to contradict the views Van Vleuten expressed, but a closer look at the race and its scenario adds more weight to her words. Sunday was her second victory in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, three years after the first. And she had to dig much deeper to find the opening towards victory.

“The level is much higher now”

“Last time, I was able to go solo in La Redoute, but this time I knew it wouldn’t work because the level is much higher now,” Van Vleuten explained. “I destroyed myself on La Redoute, and then I knew there was only one option left: going all out on La Roche-aux-Faucons.”

Nobody could follow her when the Dutch climber put the hammer down, but it was still a tight battle on the way to Liège. “My director told me I could celebrate in the final kilometre, but I kept pushing on the pedals,” she insisted after she sealed the win with a gap of 43’’ to the first chase group, from which Australia’s Grace Brown (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) dominated the sprint for 2nd ahead of another Dutch star, Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx).

“We’re really confident as a team now,” Brown rejoiced. “It’s super cool to have Marta win two races, and now me on the podium. In the Tour de France, with Cecilie [Uttrup Ludwig] as well we’ll be quite a strong team to contend with.”

Italians and Kopecky challenge the Oranje stars

Van Vleuten prevailed in Liège, but earlier in the spring, she was a first-hand witness to the rise of a more diverse guard. In the first UCI Women’s WorldTour event of the season, Strade Bianche, she was 2nd to the National Belgian Champion Lotte Kopecky. A month later, it was still Kopecky preventing Van Vleuten from winning the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Before Kopecky, Jolien D’hoore had been the only winner from Belgium in a UCI Women’s WorldTour event.

Alongside Kopecky and Van Vleuten, the UCI Women’s WorldTour spring Classics have crowned another Dutch rider - Team DSM’s Lorena Wiebes in the Miron Ronde van Drenthe - and three Italians: the UCI Road World Champion Elisa Balsamo (Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio, Exterioo Classic Brugge-De Panne, Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields), Marta Cavalli (Amstel Gold Race Ladies Edition and La Flèche Wallonne Féminine) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Paris-Roubaix Femmes).

In spring 2021, Longo Borghini (winner of the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio) and Grace Brown (Exterioo Classic Brugge-De Panne) were the only interlopers in a list of Oranje stars who had dominated the early part of the season, with successes for Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, Marianne Vos, Anna van der Breggen and Vollering alongside Van Vleuten.

Van Vleuten remains in third place in the UCI Women’s WorldTour rankings, behind Kopecky and Balsamo, and ahead of Cavalli. The season is in full swing with an impressive cast of champions rising to glory.