"I didn't enjoy cycling at all, but the mindset has changed" - Anna van der Breggen ready to return to her winning ways after 4-year pause from cycling

Anna van der Breggen has already done it all and retired from cycling at the end of the 2021 season to focus on other projects. But then she returned as a sports director for SD Worx - Protime and some years later, she'll now re-enter the professional peloton to see if the former world champion still has it in her to win races against the likes of Demi Vollering.

Van der Breggen has already won everything she wanted to win. And now she secretly assumes that she will be able return to the world top. "Of course I want to win again," she declared at SD Worx - Protime press day where Wieler Revue were present.

"However, I do not have the illusion that I will immediately be the leader in the biggest races again. That will have to be proven in practice. Although the Fleche Wallonne may be an exception (VDB won the Walloon Arrow seven times in a row, ed.). Why am I returning? Not to fill gaps in my record. I simply enjoy cycling again!"

One of the motivations for Van der Breggen to come back was the rapidly improving level of women's peloton "The level of women's cycling has increased enormously, so you can't do it alone anymore. In the past, I could sometimes arrive at the back of a hill and then still ride to the front. I suspect that I now have to put more energy into the beginning of the race."

Does she regret quitting three years ago? "No, I didn't enjoy cycling at all. And then you have to quit. I certainly enjoyed that first year that I wasn't a cyclist anymore. I started to wonder what I was doing it all for. I trained, won races, and the next year I had to do exactly the same thing again."

But Van der Breggen slowly came to miss cycling and eventually found herself back on her bike. "I now enjoy doing this as a job. The cycling itself and the training camps. I didn't like long endurance training either. If I really had to, I would do a 5-hour training, but that didn't happen very often. Now I really enjoy it. So the mindset has changed."