Matteo Jorgenson: Having Annemiek van Vleuten on Movistar raises the whole team's level

Matteo Jorgenson believes that having Annemiek van Vleuten on Movistar raises the level of both the women’s and men’s teams.

Jorgenson is in his fourth season with the Spanish squad while Van Vleuten is riding her third and final season for the team as she is set to retire at the end of the year.

In her short time with the squad, Van Vleuten has become one of its most successful riders ever, winning almost everything she has set her sights on.

“It’s good, I think it brings us all up a little bit,” Jorgenson told VeloNews. “For the men, it just inspires everyone on the team and for the women’s team it’s really good, it brings all of their levels up to work with her and around her and it’s only positive.”

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Jorgenson has enjoyed his best start to a season ever with his first professional victory at the Tour of Oman, which was quickly followed by his first GC victory at the same race. He has since taken a top-10 at Paris-Nice earlier this month against stiff competition, just two seconds behind his fellow American Nielson Powless.

The 23-year-old will now turn his attentions to the cobbles as he looks to make his Tour of Flanders debut before going to the Ardennes Classics.

While they don’t get to race together, for obvious reasons, being in the vicinity of Van Vleuten at training camps or on the rare occasion when the men’s and women’s teams are sharing hotels has been inspiring for Jorgenson and he believes he can get better by seeing how she races and trains.

“Annemiek is always around our training camps. She likes training with the men’s team and she’s always super strong,” he said. “I think I can take a lot from watching her work and watching her training. To be honest, what I’ve seen for Annemiek is that she just puts her entire life into cycling and that’s something that takes a special person to be able to do that. It takes that sacrifice to be what she is, which is the best woman cyclist in the world.

“It’s something that I’ve learned, she basically lives all year on training camp. I think that’s something that modern cycling is going towards, where if you want to be one of the leaders or one of the best, you probably just have to take your whole life and live either at altitude or whatever your form of training camp is.