Annemiek van Vleuten again masters the injury comeback

It was a devastating early end to last season for Annemiek van Vleuten, crashing hard at Paris-Roubaix and facing up to a challenging recovery, but again the Movistar rider has proved how adeptly she can deliver a speedy and powerful comeback by starting 2022 with overall victory at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana.

Van Vleuten set the foundation for the overall win on stage 3, with its trio of category 1 ascents, showing there were no weak links or signs of being underdone as a result of the recovery from two fractures to her pubic bone as she attacked on the final climb and rode away solo to accrue the stage victory and a minute on her nearest key rivals. That meant it was just a matter of defending through the final stage, which looked like one for the sprinters as the key climb was a less imposing category 3 which crested more than 30km from the finish.

Grace Brown (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), who started the day 2:31 back on the overall, tried to throw a spanner in the works for the Dutch rider who last year topped the Women’s WorldTour and UCI ranking. Brown got into the break and then rode away solo but Van Vleuten used the building experience of her teammates to help her defend.

“The team drove and checked really well from the front all day,” said van Vleuten on her website. “Grace Brown pulled away and we started driving immediately to check the lead to within two minutes. At the top it was one and a half minutes, with thirty kilometers to the finish.”

There were other teams quite content to take over driving the pace once the race was over the final climb, including Brown’s former team BikeExchange-Jayco, as they chased a chance for stage victory.

“As expected, after that climb, help came from teams that