‘My best victory’ – van Vleuten wins rainbow jersey despite broken elbow

From breaking her elbow days before the race to winning in dramatic style, it was an Annemiek van Vleuten-style fairytale in the elite women's road race at the Wollongong 2022 Road Cycling World Championships.

(L-R) Marianne Vos of Netherlands and Annemiek Van Vleuten of Netherlands celebrate celebrates the victory after the 95th UCI Road World Championships 2022 - Women Elite Road Race. Credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Annemiek van Vleuten’s chances at taking another rainbow jersey looked as forlorn as her dejected figure as she sat on the tarmac a short distance from the start ramp on the mixed team time trial on Wednesday. With subsequent scans at hospital confirming a broken elbow, van Vleuten was allowed to ride with the main problem being managing the pain.

After visibly struggling multiple times during the race when the TV cameras caught images of her face, van Vleuten pulled herself into the second group on the road over the final climb of the Wollongong circuit.

Without team leader Vos present, van Vleuten picked her moment, attacking at the juncture with the leaders with one kilometre to go, surprising everyone and taking a win for the ages.

“It took me sometime to realise that I had pulled it off, I was waiting for the moment for them to tell me, no there was someone in front… that it was a joke,” said van Vleuten. “That was why I was not celebrating at the finish, because I thought it could not be true.

“I think that is my best victory from my whole career. With the whole week I’ve been through, it’s quite a story I think, maybe also an inspiration for people. You can break your elbow, but still miracles can happen. I was not for one second thinking about winning until the last kilometre.”

The winner of three world championships previously in her career, van Vleuten volunteered for a domestique role in the aftermath of her crash, hoping to salvage something from a world championships where she had performed below her lofty standards in the time trial to finish 10^th, and then crashed in dramatic fashion.

“I was 100 per cent committed to ride for Marianne Vos today,” said van Vleuten. “Before I broke my elbow there was two leaders, me and Marianne, I was super disappointed after I broke my elbow and I was waking up each morning thinking ‘what a nightmare this world championships is’.

“All the plans I had for these world championships, of attacking with 25 kilometres to go, that it was all gone and I felt so sad.

“I thought at least I could end the world championships in a good way to do something good for Marianne Vos and I can see goodbye to Wollongong with a little bit of a less bitter taste.”

Pain management isn’t like other sports, where athletes are celebrated for playing through the pain of significant injuries after being injected multiple times with painkillers. In cycling, with stricter anti-doping and no-needle policies, such a thing isn’t possible, so van Vleuten was toughing things out on the road.

“I think the last kilometre was the only time I didn’t feel the elbow,” said van Vleuten. “I have some friends who said, ‘oh, you’re a domestique, you can enjoy the race’, they don’t know how it is to race a world championships with a broken elbow. Especially on the climbs, when I had to go out of the saddle on the last few times, I had a lot of pain.”

The 39-year-old Dutchwoman has been through a lot in her career, crashing dramatically in the road race at the Rio Olympics while leading, breaking her wrist ahead of the 2020 world championships, having a win she thought was hers taken away from her at the Tokyo Olympics where she finished second with a rider she hadn’t known about still up the road.

Van Vleuten revealed that each trial had given her the mental wherewithal to deal with the challenge of her broken elbow, and move forward to compete in the race, ultimately leading to her final victory.

“It’s a skill I’ve got better at after all those shitty things,” said van Vleuten. “Don’t be negative about what happened but try and move forward. After the doctors said I can still race with it, I was actually quite optimistic on Thursday.

“I was trying not to dig a hole, I was also not trying to think about what happened, a lot of people can get stuck in what happened. The shitty moments in my career have taught me that it’s for myself, but also for friends and teammates around me that its important to focus on what’s still possible and not look behind, but look forward.”

There have not been many times when the victory of such a massive name within cycling has also been such an upset, but the comeback of Dutch legend Annemiek van Vleuten will go down as one of the most inspiring of recent years.