Coryn Labecki: "Obviously, talent only takes you so far"

One of the big moves of the winter in the women's field was that of Coryn Labecki from Team DSM to Jumbo-Visma. Now in 2022, she has her eyes on a few races and is particularly excited to be racing with Marianne Vos.

“It’s a real big honor to be able to race with her and learn from her and see what makes her tick, just the ins, and outs of what it takes to be a legend. I think it’s just really cool," Labecky mentioned in a recent interview with Velonews, here regarding Vos.

“I respect her a lot for [winning an eighth title]. I mean, to win seven cross worlds, and then come back however many years later and win an eighth is pretty remarkable. So, to continue to find that motivation year after year after year. Is something that’s really impressive.”

Regarding her past stint with Team DSM, where she won races like the Tour des Flandres, Trofeo Alfredo Binda or the Women's Tour, she recalls it fondly: “It started out really successful. I think I had, honestly, my best years with Team DSM and I learned a lot. Obviously, talent only takes you so far but definitely drew my experience for that team grew as a person as well.”

“It was a little bit of struggle the last few years, I think I was just kind of finding a rhythm with kind of living a double life in the U.S. and in Europe. Now I think I can say that it was really successful and I’m really grateful for my entire time there.”

After a couple of more complicated years, the American rider wanted a change of scenery and being just 29 she is still very much within the capacity to return to her best level. This year she has joined with Jumbo-Visma, in a move similar to Tom Dumoulin who also achieved, like Labecki, his biggest career success in 2017 and then moved on to the Dutch squad years later.

“It just reinforces our team and we’ll have a couple more cards to play. We’re both really professional and when someone’s better on the day, that’s just how it goes. There’s a lot of respect there. I actually haven’t spent too much time with her [Vos] because she’s been racing cross but we’re both going to be here in Tenerife at altitude, and we’ll be training together."

Although she has gotten through a bad 2020 to recover her form in 2021, capturing a win in the Giro Rosa and a set of consistent results throughout the year, she looks to improve on her last years at DSM: “I think the classic season is always well suited to me and we’ll see how I come out of altitude. How my form ends up but yeah, I mean, normally the race is from Binda through Gent-Wevelgem, Flanders, Amstel. Those are that’s kinds of races that suit me really well. I will probably target that with a bit of a double leadership with Marianne and then, of course, the Tour is later on this season and hopefully be part of that roster. I’d like to get to stage one there.”

Labecki has been training in Alicante recently and will soon depart to an altitude camp in Tenerife, as many pros do at this time of year. Soon in the spring she will discover if she can get back to the form that has seen her conquer Flandres five years ago.