Anna & the golden rainbow

Not long before she took her first rainbow jersey as World Champion I spoke with Dutch flyer Anna van der Breggen, here’s a grab from that conversation focussing on her rainbow dreams, and just why she thinks the ladies on orange are so dominant in cycling, and also just what in meant to become Olympic Champion.

ST; There has been a long line of amazing Dutch female racers, why do you think this happens?

AVDB; It’s difficult to say, and yes there have been some strong girls, and for a long time. Maybe it’s coincidence, but we live in a strong cycling country, so there are already more girls than normal on the bike, so there’s a bigger chance of finding girls with that talent.

In Holland it’s not strange for a girl to be on the bike. In Spain it would be more difficult for a girl to step on a race bike, but that’s not how it is here.

ST; You’ve won so much in recent times, but never quite managed to take a world title – does that stick out to you?

AVDB; Yeah, well, that’s something I didn’t achieve yet. I wouldn’t say that if I’m never world champion that my career has not been successful. 

Of course I try to do well every year in the world championship, and I’ve been close, but not quite there. It’s nice to still have something that I can really focus on, and I will try very hard to win one time – It’s difficult to be World Champion.

ST; The Olympics was an amazing race (which you won); the descent was terrifying, and ended up with Annemeik Van Vleuten crashing out while up front – how did that paly out?

AVDB; It was a difficult descent, and because of that I’d practiced it (virtually) many times before I went to Rio – I found it on Google. I knew every corner already in my mind, so when we did the recon a couple of times I could already do it really well.

It was something I focussed on. I think every descent at the end of an Olympic race is a risk you take. It’s the biggest race, and you take risks, no matter how it looks, especially when it started to rain.

I was the team leader in the race, because of my results in climbing races that year. But, of course the aim was to win the race for the team – and Annemiek felt really good that day, I think better than ever. 

She surprised herself, and us, and of course if you feel that you are still able to attack, then you should do it.  She did great, and had a really good day, and that’s how we always race – you can have a leader, but you have to see how things are on the day.

I was of course following because she was on the front. Then we saw that there was a motorbike and a car in the corner, we could see something orange, but we couldn’t tell what it was as we were going so fast, it was all a blur.

In one second, you see something like that. It was so fast, and you'd worked so long for that race. Then in 20-minutes of the climb and descent it all changed, you have to react really fast and decide what to do.

It was the most crazy race of my life; the most beautiful and also the most difficult with having to know and decide how to react, as we didn’t have any help from behind 

It all happened so fast, and you’re quite emotional, but you can’t be like that on the bike. Then we were suddenly in the middle of the race again, and we had to chase the leader. It’s something that happens in cycling, but I think that because it’s such a big race you’re able to do it – you know that it’s only one chance in 4 years to do it. 

I did the best sprint of my life, and was in the right position, and I think about hat at times.