Anna van der Breggen

Anna van der Breggen (born 18 April 1990) is a Dutch former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2009 and 2021 for Team Flexpoint,, and.

In 2007, aged 17, she was fifth in the juniors world championship road race in Aguascalientes but had a difficult transition to the elite category.

She considered quitting the sport after she suffered in the back of the peloton during the Grote Prijs Gerrie Knetemann.

Van der Breggen turned professional in 2012 with the.

In April, she took a ninth-placed finish at the Tour of Flanders, and in July, she won the Tour de Bretagne Féminin.

She won three of the four stages and secured the overall classification with a lead of almost three minutes over Sofie De Vuyst.

She also won the time trial at the Tour Féminin en Limousin as well as the gold medal in the women's under-23 time-trialling event at the European championships.

As a result, she was selected for the 2012 World Championships.

Whilst playing a domestique role for her team leader, Marianne Vos, she managed to finish fifth herself in the road race.

In 2013 she devoted herself to finishing her studies and rode a low-key season, with the highlight of the year a fourth place at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda.

In preparation for the 2014 season, she announced she would be joining the team.

Van der Breggen's first season on the Rabo team proved highly fruitful.

She opened the year with top-10 finishes in the Ronde van Drenthe, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and the Tour of Flanders, and started showing her stage racing potential throughout the season.

She claimed notable wins in the overall classification of both the Ladies Tour of Norway and Grand Prix Elsy Jacobs in Luxembourg; as well as a runner-up spot in the Belgium Tour and third places in the Emakumeen Euskal Bira and the Giro Rosa, in a podium made up entirely of riders.

Her season came to an abrupt end when she broke her pelvis at the UCI Road World Championships in Ponferrada, Spain.

Her teammate Annemiek van Vleuten crashed just before the finish of the Women's Team Time Trial after clipping the roadside barriers and brought down Van der Breggen and two other riders.

Van der Breggen broke her ilium and was transported to hospital.

She recovered from her pelvic fracture in the winter of 2015 and won her first major classic, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, in late February.

Van der Breggen had broken away from a lead group together with Ellen van Dijk on the Molenberg, at 30 km from the finish.

She beat her fellow Dutch in the sprint.

The following week, she was second in Le Samyn des Dames.

In April she won La Flèche Wallonne with an attack at the foot of the Mur de Huy, and recorded several podium positions in one-day races.

She highlighted her stage race potential again by taking the overall classification at the Grand Prix Elsy Jacobs, which she led from the prologue to the end of the race.

In June, she won the bronze medal in the women's road race at the inaugural European Games in Baku.

She was part of a four-woman breakaway together with Ellen van Dijk, Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Alena Amialiusik, when an acceleration by Van der Breggen caused her teammate van Dijk to be dropped, for the race to be decided in a three-up sprint.

She won the gold medal in the women's road race at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and has won the Giro d'Italia Femminile on four occasions.

In 2017, she won all three Ardennes classics races in one week, which earned her the nickname Queen of the Ardennes.

She went on to secure her second Giro d'Italia win the following summer.

In 2018 and 2020, she won the women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships.

Considered one of the most versatile riders of her generation, Van der Breggen excelled in both the one-day classics and stage races, particularly when run on a hilly terrain.

Apart from the Olympic road race title and three Giro Rosa titles, other notable wins include La Flèche Wallonne on seven consecutive occasions, Liège–Bastogne–Liège two times, the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race, Strade Bianche, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the European Road Race Championships.

In addition, she has won the general classification and numerous stages in smaller stage races.

After she obtained her nursing degree, she became a full-time professional cyclist and finished 18th in the Giro Rosa in the summer.

She was selected to compete in the World Championships in Florence where she finished fourth in the road race.

In April 2019, she won the La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, her fifth-consecutive win in the race.

In 2020, she won both the Individual Time Trial as well as the Road Race at the UCI World Championships.

Following her retirement at the end of the 2021 season, Van der Breggen now works as a directeur sportif for her final professional team, UCI Women's WorldTeam.

Anna van der Breggen was born in Zwolle into a cycling family.

She has three brothers and a sister who all practiced cycling at some point.

She started bike-racing at the age of seven with the local club WV Noordwesthoek and became more serious about it in the juniors category.