40 months after her last race, Anna van der Breggen returns and challenges Demi Vollering - "I didn't think I would be able to keep up on a climb for so long"

It is the stuff dreams are made of. Anna van der Breggen is one of cycling's most successful ever riders in the women's peloton, but nothing would've prepared her to be challenging none other than Demi Vollering in her first race in over three years after retiring from the sport.

Van der Breggen, a former Olympic and World Champion, alongside dozens of other high-level achievements, retired from the sport in 2021. She became a DS for Team SD Worx - Protime, where she led Demi Vollering from the team car - as well as the likes of Lotte Kopecky, Lorena Wiebes, and also Marlen Reusser with whom she'd work with this Thursday.

Van der Breggen hadn't raced in the pro peloton since the 2021 Leuven World Championships, and decided to start her season early on at the Setmana Valenciana. The 34-year old was the one rider who managed to follow Vollering's destructive first attack. Later she was dropped, but worked together with Reusser (now a Movistar rider) to finish third on the day.

"I wasn't expecting this yet. I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't think I would be able to keep up on a climb for so long. So that in itself is a good result. Especially when you see which riders were not with us and taking into account the amount of energy I wasted in the beginning to ride back in the peloton," van der Breggen said in a post-race interview. "I also didn't expect it to explode like that at all today. So I'm definitely very happy with how it went. I definitely get a lot of confidence out of this".

Even for a rider of her calibber, a return to the sport at such a high level is a feat of tremendous proportions. Not only is it a massive challenge to become a pro once again, but the fact that she managed to achieve such a result is also evidence of her training and commitment over the past three years whilst not competing herself.

"In the past it was also the case that every year I had to get used to it a bit during the first race, but now of course I had that a lot more," she continued. "Also because we are riding here with a group of girls who were all struggling a bit to position themselves well in the peloton. We had to test how we got to the front together. That eventually went better and better. It was nice to see that we made progress in that right away. But that took energy".

"So I didn't expect to get this far right away on my return. I know I can still make a lot of steps in terms of intensity. Also in the pursuit with Marlen Reusser I noticed that I still need just a bit more time to be able to do such intensity more often. I could not really recover anymore in between in the last part. I was happy to be on the road with Marlen. She rode nicely in between. I didn't really expect us to come back, although I think Marlen still fully believed in it. In any case, we rode as hard as we could together. Third on my return is a nice result anyway".

It could not realistically be a better day to start off her season, although she expects difficulties in the coming days. "Tomorrow (this Friday, ed.) I expect somewhat the same scenario. It will be a tough stage. Friday's course is tougher than the first stage. So if this already exploded today, I expect it again tomorrow. Only tomorrow, from the last mountain, it's a bit further to the finish. So it's far to ride alone to the line. But if you see that the differences were quite big today anyway, I think it will be the same tomorrow," the veteran concluded.