Annemiek van Vleuten HISTORY CALLING

Annemiek van Vleuten has achieved nearly everything there is to achieve in cycling but this summer she’s eyeing something that hasn’t been done for over 20 years – the Giro-Tour double. Adam Becket finds out what keeps her coming back for more at 39, why training with male team-mates is integral to her improvement and whether she really is “an alien”

- Adam Becket

If you are into board games, then you may have played Ticket to Ride, the game where you build an empire across a continent using railway lines. If so then you have something in common with Annemiek van Vleuten, who is one of millions of players worldwide. But the difference between you and her is that the Dutchwoman has also been building an empire of her own across Europe, not with little plastic trains or wooden blocks on a board but with win after relentless win.

The 39-year-old has established herself as the rider to beat in almost every race she takes part in. But as she’ll later tell CW, she still considers herself a “normal girl” and isn’t averse to a beer and a piece of cake between her rivalcrushing victories.

This year is set to be history-making. This season heralds the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes, an eight-day event organised by the most dominant promoter within the WorldTour, ASO. It will be the first time a women’s Tour has been held, in association with the men’s race, since 1989.

This big opportunity to compete for a yellow jersey comes in the same month as the Giro d’Italia Donne, a 10-day stage race which has been one of the biggest races in the women’s sport for decades. Only one rider can realistically win them both, and that rider is van Vleuten. If she does, she’ll be the first person to achieve the feat in a quarter of a century; the last such double victory went to Marco Pantani, in 1998.

‘Beautiful goal’