The Olympic champion and World Number One will bid farewell to professional cycling at the end of 2023 season, after renewing with Movistar. On Wednesday, Movistar announced that Annemiek van Vleuten, its team leader since the start of the 2021 season, has re-signed with the Telefónica-backed project managed by Sebastián Unzué for an additional year, 2023, after which she will put an end to 16 years in the pro peloton. Van Vleuten’s extraordinary career, which includes almost 90 pro wins, has gone through some of its biggest highlights while racing for the Movistar Team. 2021 was Miek’s best season to…
Author: Henri Giroud
Henri Giroud
Fifty years of pro cycling journalism and television commentary. It gets easier after the first forty years.
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Report Kristen Faulkner took victory in the Individual Time Trial at the Tour de Suisse Women by a margin of 14 seconds, and stepped into the overall lead of the race too, on a remarkable day for Team BikeExchange-Jayco. Incredible rides from Faulkner, Georgia Williams and Georgia Baker saw the team take a clean sweep of the podium. Williams, wearing her New Zealand TT champions kit, had taken the hotseat with a blistering time of 32’00 flat, going an incredible 1’14” clear of the next rider in the provisional standings at that point. Faulkner improved on her team-mate’s time by…
Report Remco Evenepoel confirmed again he is one of the peloton’s finest time trialists, notching up his seventh success in the discipline after a storming ride on the last day of the Tour de Suisse, which concluded in Liechtenstein’s capital, Vaduz. As soon as he left the start house, Remco showed he was a man on a mission, flying on the first part of the 25.6km hilly route and going fastest by a mile at the 12.9km checkpoint. Averaging over 54km/h, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s rider stormed around the course and obliterated the best result at the finish, going into the…
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Report The wait this time was shorter. Barely two months after his last success at the Tour of the Alps, Thibaut Pinot took victory on the seventh stage of the Tour de Suisse, which ended at the top of Malbun, Liechtenstein. A member of the morning breakaway in the company of Lewis Askey, the French climber perfectly managed his effort on the final ascent before going to win alone. “I had a complicated start to the week but I gained confidence on Friday when I saw that I was once again able to follow the leaders,” said Thibaut Pinot. “I…
Tadej Pogačar returns to savor the taste of victory and does it on his home roads, winning the 3rd stage of the Tour of Slovenia, 144.6 km from Zalec to Celje. As happened on Wednesday on the occasion of Rafal Majka’s success, the winner of two Tour de France titles pounced from afar, attacking from the group together with his Polish teammate 23 km from the line: the UAE Team Emirates duo stormed the 2nd category ascent of Svetina (5.2 km at 7.7% average gradient), gaining a good margin on the chasers. After taking the descent, without risking too much,…