Almost 30 and still a professional cyclist, just like Van Vleuten: ‘Yes, that’s possible’

NOS Cycling•today, 08:25

The comparisons between Mareille Meijering and Annemiek van Vleuten are common. Both only became professional cyclists in their late twenties. Both have a background in the academic world. Both specialize in climbing. Both in the blue Movistar cycling uniform.

And both in the Tour of Spain, 29-year-old Meijering makes her debut in La Vuelta on Sunday.

Meijering laughs. “If you think about how many times I am told that I look like Annemiek, you would think that I should follow in her footsteps.”

To add carefully: “If I can achieve about a quarter of what she has achieved, then that is much more than I ever dared to dream. Annemiek was of such an exceptional level. Her status is still enormous here .”

For the record, let’s first introduce Mareille Meijering properly. More than a year ago she was still working as a lecturer at the universities of Groningen and Utrecht. In the meantime, she veered towards professional cycling, working for a small cycling team: Zaaf Cycling Team.

The Spanish team was experiencing payment problems, leaving Meijering free to change teams in the middle of the season. Thanks to a few nice race results, a larger cycling team dared to compete with her. Suddenly she was driving for Movistar, the Spanish team of her role model Van Vleuten.

However, her first season as a professional did not exactly go smoothly. “It was difficult to switch in the middle of the season. I had to get used to everything, it was my first professional contract, I started working less, training a lot more, also with new equipment. All in all, my body didn’t like that very much. “

A lingering knee injury kept her off course for the rest of the season. Riding in the peloton with Van Vleuten was therefore not an option: the four-time world champion ended her successful career last winter.

“I really think it’s a shame that I wasn’t able to race with Annemiek. I have talked to her a few times, she is very open, wants to help you with everything. But that is just not the same as seeing up close how she sets out on a course.”

Last winter, Meijering visited a battery of physiotherapists, a podiatrist and osteopaths. She underwent several so-called bike fittings, where body and racing bike are measured perfectly to each other. “We looked at everything: crazy movements, twists in the body. Slowly things got better. I’m feeling good on the bike again.”

To her own surprise, she found her way up quite quickly this spring. She rode to a creditable sixteenth place in the Flèche Wallonne. And she took her very first professional victory, the three-day WorldTour race the Tour of Extremadura. “It was really a surprise to be on that stage.”

She wants to emphasize that that race cannot be compared with the Tour of Spain, where all WorldTour teams will be at the start on Sunday. In ten editions, La Vuelta España Femenina has grown from a one-day race to a full-fledged round with eight stages.

Meijering: “It is really cool that I can ride the Vuelta. That was not the intention at the start of the season. And this is the home race for Movistar.”

Van Vleuten won the past three editions of the Vuelta on behalf of Movistar. This year the team hopes for a stage win and a top 10 ranking in the final classification. “I expect that I will mainly do my work uphill for the other girls. Liane Lippert and Olivia Baril can ride a good classification.”

At Movistar, Meijering learns the tricks of cycling from teammates who are often the same age as the bachelor students she taught. “That was sometimes quite strange in the beginning, haha. Anyway, it’s just nice to make use of all that experience around me.”

Yet she is also happy that she has seen student life and work as a teacher at university. “That’s a bit of life experience that you don’t get if you enter professional cycling at the age of eighteen. I think I can put things into perspective well. There are worse things in life and so many races to ride. After a bad race I don’t have to not immediately with a cycling pension, or something.”

“You know, until a few years ago I always thought: now I still have to become a professional cyclist, I’m way too old for that, right? I never dreamed that this was still possible. But Annemiek van Vleuten has proven that you can age. Yes, I certainly used her as an example. It is possible!”