‘Don’t make me cry’ – Annemiek van Vleuten ‘proud’ after Cycling World Championships farewell

Annemiek van Vleuten says her eighth place in the women’s road race at the UCI Cycling World Championships was a “nice way to say goodbye to the sport”.

The Dutch star, 40, has just two more races on her schedule – the Tour of Scandinavia and the Simac Ladies Tour – before retirement.

She has one of the most enviable palmares in the peloton, having won the inaugural Tour de France Femmes last year, four Giro d’Italia Donne titles, Olympic time trial gold at the rearranged Tokyo Games and four world titles.

“I’m proud that I can say in my last year I still raced at the front, I was still there to fight for the win and never give up,” Van Vleuten told Eurosport at the finish, after telling interviewer Hannah Walker “don’t make me cry”.

She continued: “After two bike changes I thought ‘I cannot come back anymore’ but I felt like I would just give it a try. I’m super happy that I could come back because I could do the work for Demi Vollering and could set up some attacks.

“It means I leave this World Championships with a better feeling. It also says something about my character – never give up.

“When I got a flat tyre on the last lap I had to accept I was not in the mix anymore to fight for the win.

“I could get really sad but [I thought] ‘no, I need to enjoy this moment and all the people clapping for me’. I could feel a lot of people realised this was my last World Championships and it felt like a nice way to say goodbye to the sport.”

When asked about the standout moment from her career, Van Vleuten picked out the 2022 World Championships – when she won an incredible gold in the road race with a fractured elbow.

“Everything came together in one week,” she said. “Dealing with disappointment, accepting it and moving on. Obviously the situation with a broken elbow and I got an amazing present to take the opportunity to get the win in the last kilometre. That was special.”