Cyclist
Anna van der Breggen to return to racing in 2025
The legendary Anna van der Breggen will return to professional racing in 2025, as she returns to SD Worx-Protime on a two-year contract. Van der Breggen, who retired at the end of 2021, had worked as a directeur sportif for the squad since hanging up her cleats in 2021.
In an announcement on the team’s social media, she said, ‘Motivation is completely back after three years. It’s an exciting decision. If I didn’t feel the motivation, I would never be able to do this. I am excited to come back. To suffer on the bike again and to race with the team again. I realise now how much I love the game, the sport and the competition. In any case, for me it is a privilege to be a cyclist again soon in 2025.’
34-year-old Van der Breggen was a monumental figure in the peloton before her first retirement; Olympic, World, European and National titles galore as one of the greatest riders ever. She won gold in the road race at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and secured double rainbow bands in road and time-trialling at the 2020 World Championships.
She became ‘Queen of the Ardennes’ in 2017 as the first woman to complete the Ardennes Triple – winning the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the same season. She was utterly dominant at La Flèche Wallonne, winning seven consecutive times from 2015 to 2021.
Van der Breggen did it all, including four editions of the women’s Giro d’Italia, but she retired before the first Tour de France Femmes. With SD Worx-Protime’s star rider – and Van der Breggen’s protégé – Demi Vollering set to leave the team at the end of this season, Van der Breggen could slot straight back in at the top of the team’s pecking order and be competing against Vollering at the 2025 Tour de France Femmes.
The post Anna van der Breggen to return to racing in 2025 appeared first on Cyclist.