Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a España and, almost miraculously, world gold. The Dutch Annemiek van Vleuten is already a cycling legend. Injured in an elbow after a fall last Wednesday in the mixed relay event, which adds even more epic to her triumph, the Movistar woman was able to proclaim herself world champion on the road for the second time in her career in the Cycling World Championships in Road that are celebrated in Wollongong (Australia). A triumph that makes her unique, because at 39 years old (she will be 40 on October 8), she has achieved the perfect year.
Van Vleuten came to these world championships as the great favorite for the elite women's events, but the seventh place in the time trial and, above all, the fall in the mixed relay race, in which she injured an elbow, made her lose options in the forecasts. Especially her downfall, which she made fear even because of her participation.
In fact, given her problems and after being cut from the best in the last two climbs to the slope that marked each of the six laps of the final 17-kilometer circuit on which these world championships are being played, the champion worked harder for victory of his partner Marianne Vos, if the sprint was reached, than for his personal one.
It was an unexpected and epic ending for the Movistar runner. In the absence of a kilometer she got into the leading group, absorbed by another of eight runners in which she was. That was the moment that she took advantage of to launch her unexpected and epic final attack that gave her her second World Cup gold, the thirteenth medal -six golds- in major championships and rounded off a 2022 season, her 40th birthday, perfect of her
They completed the podium of a race marked by rain, which at times was very bad, the Belgian Lotte Kopecky and the Italian Silvia Persico. Sixth was the Cuban Arlenis Sierra and the Balearic Mavi García, in whom the Spanish team had high hopes, she entered 25th in a second group of 13 units that came 13 seconds behind the winner. Ane Santesteban from Gipuzkoa was thirtieth, in a trio that reached 4.50 led by Colombian Paula Andrea Patiño, twenty-eighth.
