Annemiek van Vleuten is shortly making her return to the racing world after making recovery from a broken wrist. The only downside to her much-awaited return is that the Dutch racer will not be taking part in the Dutch Road Championship. Vleuten took to her website to make the announcement:
I chose not to ride in the Dutch National Championships. That is for two reasons; I want to prepare myself optimally and move forward in the optimal form for the Giro and Tour de France, where the Dutch National Championships do not fit in for me.
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This will be the first time in the last fifteen years that the Dutch racer will be absent from the Championship. As of now, the star wants to chase down the pink and yellow jersey for 2022. Her intentions seemed quite clear in her statement:
The goal is to ride for the classification in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France and that will be quite challenging
Women’s WorldTeam Movistar Team’s star Vleuten suffered from a broken wrist as a result of a training accident. The accident occurred in late April, prior to which she took part in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes and stood victorious. After that, she has not been a part of any race. She now looks forward to Giro d’Italia Donne, starting on June 30th, to get her bike running again.
The 39-year-old is the winner of a national road race title in 2012. Even though she has taken part in a four-time trial national title, she now wants to test her strength in a different course. She explained:
As I said; I can ride a classification and that’s why I do it, but my heart is more with flying like Mathieu van der Poel. It’s no different for the Giro. Also there I will have to stay out of trouble for the first few days and I see it only getting really difficult in the last few days
With the return of the women’s Tour de France, the rider now has the chance to pursue stages at both the events but as she is the only Dutch Movistar racer, she will be taking part in the races unaccompanied.
Even though the yellow and pink jerseys are now her main goal, her heart still lies with one-day racing.
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Featured Image Via YouTube/ FloBikes
