Annemiek van Vleuten to bow out with ‘greatest hits’ racing calendar
Grand tours, monuments, and the worlds are targets for reigning world champion in swansong season.
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Annemiek van Vleuten and her final season will be a greatest hits racing calendar.
The world champion confirmed her 2023 racing calendar, and it’s a doozy.
Van Vleuten will race all three grand tours, all the major one-days, and put a target on the world championships. One notable exception: No Paris-Roubaix.
It’s a fitting way to bow out of the sport that she’s dominated for the past decade.
“I am clear I want to race both the Giro and the Tour again,” Van Vleuten said over the winter. “It is something that I have already been talking about with my coach and with my team. I still love racing in Italy, and I want to ride one more Giro.
“It would be a first big block of competition from Flanders to La Vuelta, and a second block including Giro and Tour,” Van Vleuten said.
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With the juggled calendar and the Vuelta Femenina moving into May, it will be an action-packed season for Van Vleuten.
For the past several weeks, she’s been camped out in Colombia and training at altitude.
The Movistar captain will debut on Spanish roads at Setmana Ciclista Valencia (February 16-19), and then dive into the spring classics.
From there, it’s all three grand tours — that she swept in 2022 — and then the worlds.
Van Vleuten vows she’s done racing full-time at the end of the season, but with the Paris Olympic Games on tap in 2024, there’s a chance the peloton won’t see the last of her yet.
Annemiek van Vleuten and her confirmed 2023 calendar:
Setmana Ciclista Valencia (February 16-19)
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (February 25)
Strade Bianche (March 5)
Tenerife altitude camp — March
Tour of Flanders (April 2)
Amstel Gold Race (April 16)
Flèche Wallonne (April 19)
Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 23)
Vuelta a España (May 1-7)
Training camp — late May to June
Dutch nationals (June 24)
Giro d’Italia (June 30 to July 9)
Livigno altitude camp — July
Tour de France Femmes (July 23-30)
World time trial championship (August 10)
World road race championship (August 12)