Annemiek van Vleuten to compete in Giro d'Italia Donne and the Tour de France Femmes

Annemiek van Vleuten has announced that she plans to compete in both the Giro d'Italia Donne and the Tour de France Femmes this summer. Van Vleuten confirmed earlier this year that she will compete in both women's grand tours as well as the Challenge by La Vuelta in 2022.

However, this is the first time she has said that she would enter the two races with the goal of winning the overall championship. The Dutch rider has won the Giro d'Italia Donne twice, in 2018 and 2019, but this will be her first chance to compete in the Tour de France Femmes since the competition was brought back this season.

“The goal is to ride for the classification in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France and that will be quite challenging, I like to attack, and one-day races are my passion and heart. That passion does not lie in going for classification, I do it because I can. The Tour de France is a great goal and I also get excited about the Giro when I see the men's Giro,” Van Vleuten wrote on her website

Van Vleuten's preparation for her major summer ambitions has been less than ideal since she fell and injured her wrist only days after winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April. She had to miss the Spanish stage races in May as she healed, but she was immediately back in the saddle as soon as possible. Van Vleuten was in Andorra for altitude training shortly after having her wrist operated on, but her complete recovery would take time. “I am now back from a few weeks of training in Andorra. I have to say, the first week and a half there was difficult. Cycling with pain is no fun,It was possible because it didn’t make it worse, but it did hurt. You will therefore compensate, and your body is not completely in balance," the veteran added.

"That made it a struggle and I didn’t enjoy riding my bike every day. However, that is now behind me. Four weeks after the surgery I could say that I was cycling around without pain, I was able to get out of the saddle and pull on the handlebars again,” Van Vleuten concluded.