MADRID, 29 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten will run the 2023 season, the last of her professional career, in the ranks of the Movistar Team, with which she has renewed for another year, as confirmed by the Spanish team on Wednesday
“The Movistar Team is proud to announce this Wednesday that Annemiek van Vleuten, the great leader of its women’s project since the beginning of 2021, has signed a new contract with the telephone structure led by Sebastián Unzué for the next campaign, in which it will end fifteen years of professional competition,” the Movistar Team said in a statement.
The current Olympic time trial champion and number one in the ranking will put an end next year to a successful sports career in which, at the moment, 90 professional victories appear, a list of winners that has increased in the ‘telephone’ squad with which she has won the Tour of Flanders, the Tour of Spain and Norway, the Liège-Bastoña-Liège or the Setmana Valenciana.
“My career, what has driven my efforts as a professional athlete, has always been to improve in every aspect, and not necessarily the victories. Polishing every detail, physically and mentally, as an individual runner and also as a team wherever I go. I’ve been through, it’s been the place where I’ve drawn strength to perform at a high level for so many years,” said the Dutchwoman.
Van Vleuten wants to “help the team take another ‘little step’ in its progression in 2023”, as he has already done “with all the people” he has met at Movistar Team during his first two seasons. “Being part of that improvement process is the reason why I have signed for another year. I see that we are going up, that we continue to take this further and further, and I did not want to leave halfway,” he said.
“Two years is a very short period and three I think is something more complete, a beautiful cycle. And I have no doubt that this structure will continue to progress in 2024 and beyond,” added the cyclist who will turn 40 in October .
The one from Wageningen acknowledged that “on an individual level” she didn’t see herself “stopping this year” either. “I’m still super motivated, at the same time that I see that there will have to be a moment in which I leave it, and in my mentality it is better to stop when I am still at the highest level, fighting for the victory in the most important races, than when I no longer I am. I want to finish at the top, and to do it with this wonderful group I think is the best,” he admitted.
“I’m sure there will be quite a few people who wonder why I’m withdrawing before the Paris Games. And for me this, my career as an athlete, has never been about specific goals or careers. It’s about finding long-term projects that motivate, like the Movistar Team and all the groups I’ve been through, places where you can pour all your energy”, stressed Van Vleuten.
For this reason, he stressed that “the main reason” to put an end to 2023 is to do it at his “best physical level” and to “finish off that process of change and improvement” that he wants for the team. “Then I will begin to look at the following challenges in my personal life. Surely the day I leave it I will do so with a ‘little tear’, because I love this sport, but I want that when I leave the ‘professional athlete’ part of cycling, do it above all”, he sentenced.