Anna van der Breggen has been very cautious about her chances in the Tour de France Femmes for a week. But the 35-year-old Dutchwoman proved in the challenging fifth stage that she must be reckoned with.
In the corner of a deserted parking lot on Avenue Pierre Mendès France in Guéret, a former Olympic champion is doing her cooldown Wednesday at the end of the afternoon. Out of the sun, and out of the hustle and bustle of the Tour.
Van der Breggen surprisingly came close to her first stage win in the French tour a quarter of an hour earlier. The rider of SD Worx-Protime was among the best six climbers in the hilly final through the Creuse department. Only Kimberley Le Court – the new wearer of the yellow jersey – and Demi Vollering – the top favorite – were faster at the finish line.
“I’m very happy that I was in that group and that the feeling is good,” says Van der Breggen after her third place. “It’s going a lot better than I had hoped and expected before the Tour. But let’s be honest: this was only a 3-kilometer climb. The real giant mountains in the Alps are yet to come. This was not comparable.”
Van der Breggen returned to the peloton this season after a three-year break. That is why she and the leadership of her team have been preaching caution throughout the Tour. “It would be easy to get very enthusiastic now,” says sporting director Danny Stam. “But then it could be very disappointing.”
Kopecky had to ride a good general classification for SD Worx
After the departure of Demi Vollering, SD Worx-Protime hoped that Lotte Kopecky would compete for the yellow jersey in this Tour. Van der Breggen was to become the luxury helper of the Belgian world champion.
But Kopecky is not good enough after a difficult season full of injuries. After five stages, she is only 44th in the general classification, more than thirteen minutes behind Le Court. This means that Van der Breggen is still the only hope for a good classification. The Zwolle resident is only 27 seconds behind the yellow jersey as number five.
“Of course, it’s in the back of our minds that Anna can participate in the classification,” says Stam. “She will also get morale from the fact that she was among the best climbers today. Let’s say it’s positive how she is developing this Tour.”
“But I dare not say what it will be like in the high mountains later. In the Giro, she just fell short there a few weeks ago. But if we get to see the old Anna in the Alps, then she should be able to keep up.”
Watch how Le Court takes yellow after an impressive sprint
Van der Breggen dominated women’s cycling
The ‘old’ Van der Breggen was the best climber in the peloton for a long time. She dominated women’s cycling from 2015 to 2021 together with Annemiek van Vleuten. That will no longer be possible now, because a lot has changed during her three-year cycling sabbatical.
“The races are now really at a different level,” says Van der Breggen. “If you look at the first five stages of this Tour, you see that it is constantly going hard. So riding like I used to do is no longer possible. I’m already starting to get tired at the last climb. That’s all new to me.”
These are all rational arguments for the proposition that Van der Breggen will NOT be able to compete against top riders Vollering, Le Court and Kasia Niewiadoma. At the same time, she has made a very good impression so far in her first Tour.
“We maintain that it is not realistic that Anna will participate in the Tour victory,” says team boss Erwin Janssen of SD Worx-Protime. “We don’t want to put that pressure on her. But of course we can’t say that it is totally impossible. Only then do a lot of things have to fall the right way.”