"I am not yet where I want to be" - Anna van der Breggen not satisfied despite an impressive display at Omloop van het Hageland
Cycling
After diabolical Omloop Het Nieuwsblad WE, Team SD Worx - Protime couldn't afford another disaster at the follow up semi-classic - Omloop van het Hageland. And thanks to spectacular performance from the returning Anna van der Breggen, her teammate Femke Gerritse was indeed able to pull it off, and in a sprint of a small group take the biggest victory of her career.
"We wanted to make the race hard and it worked out well. Anna van der Breggen was super strong and did a lot of work. She put us all in a luxury position," Gerritse complimented her teammate.
Van der Breggen was indeed in the center of all action this Sunday. When her first attack at 55 km mark didn't work out, she tried again on the penultimate time up the cobbled Kerkstraat, reducing the front group to just about 30 riders. She then continued to reduce the numbers up front, and eventually there were only seven riders left to fight it out for the victory. With her last strength, she prepared a sprint for her teammate Gerritse who was able to finish off the job.
"I hope I can make some more steps and become better than I am now. In terms of intensity, I am not yet where I want to be. But you only get that part by racing. In training you can plan your intervals very specifically, but in racing it is not so measured. In between, you ride harder and you don't know in advance how many times you have to go, as you do in training," Van der Breggen said in team press release.
"Sometimes you have to go 10 times, sometimes 20. You only get that intensity by racing. That's what this race was perfect for. Every time, the intensity was there. This was a top day for the team and a special win for Femke Gerritse."
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- I believe Mathieu rather gets beaten by a stronger rider than one who raced smarter. That is why he wanted to team up with Pogacar to drop the JV riders and Mads who were not helping in the chase of the first group since they had a teammate up front.JoostMehrtens08-04-2025
- Just shows that LA is not truly repentant. JUSTICE was served. No winner, no second , no third on the podium for those 7 years. No real winners could be determined, ever. Lance got to keep most of his money , he really should can it . He is toxic to cycling.dave08-04-2025
- Tricky one as while I agree Pogi and UAE are simply faster over a long distance which means Visma and MVP need to be as smart with energy use as can, it's also been proven in the past that one way for Pogi to be beaten is relentless attacks, to put him into the red. However that does require a rider to as good as sacrifice themselves for that one move which makes riskHoopoeChai07-04-2025
- Even if not technically against the rules, this is just bad etiquette and frankly I hope the rest of pelaton remembers Arkea don't care about etiquette or honoring tradition which means they shouldn't benifit from it.HoopoeChai07-04-2025
- The other issue is that Mad Petersen and Wout would have let MVDP do most of the work, as he kept showing he was stronger. MVDP did the strategy with the highest likelihood of victory, he just wasn't strong enough.acem8207-04-2025
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maria2024202407-04-2025 - A lot of medicine does nothing more than speed up recovery time 4-5 days instead of 7-8, 10-12 instead of 2 weeks. It is questionable if it’s really a good thing for healthy people to rely on it as it also makes your immune system lazy and less responsive next time round, making you more and more reliant on medication (surprise, surprise). A bit like glasses, the less you succumb to adapting their strength, the slower the deterioration. Unfortunately many bacterial infections are not so easy to fight without help, your body should manage in the end but it can take really long, I once had strong fever for 3 months trying to fight an infection without reducing work or lifestyle (the antibiotics at the beginning didn’t help).Mistermaumau07-04-2025
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- I appreciate the No Excuses thing...bobo07-04-2025