Five months after giving birth to her son, Ellen van Dijk has returned to competition in flying form, as she took the victory in the time trial on stage 3 of the Vuelta Extremadura Féminas.
The three-day Spanish stage race was the Dutch rider’s first race back after her pregnancy and it was like she had never been away, as she finished sixth overall in the general classification despite the fact that she was working for her teammates Brodie Chapman and Gaia Realini.
In her post-race interview with her team, the Lidl-Trek rider said “I’m really happy to win this race but I’m really focusing on the process that I’m in right now. I reached the goal that I wanted right now, and that’s not specifically about winning a race but more about power output, my approach to the race and how I execute the plan, and this all went well”.
Van Dijk is now set to head to the Classics, as she is scheduled to be riding at Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen at the end of March ahead of the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix Femmes.
Looking ahead to those races, the former Ronde van Vlaanderen winner said “I’m really looking forward to the Classics, it was super nice to be back with the Team, to have the whole race feeling again and it was also super cool to race with all the young riders here”.
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