Ellen van Dijk

Eleonora Maria "Ellen" van Dijk (born 11 February 1987) is a Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam.

Because Van Dijk performed well, she started competing in national races at the age of 15 in 2002.

In the same year, in her first national championship, she finished in fourth place.

The following year, she won the Dutch national road championship in the novice category.

In 2004, Van Dijk won two more national titles, this time as a junior, in the road race and in the road individual time trial.

In the latter, she beat Marianne Vos, though Vos would avenge her defeat in Road World Championships in Verona, Italy.

Vos won the junior road race world title, with Van Dijk finishing third.

Van Dijk graduated from Minkema College, Woerden, in 2005 and earned a bachelor's degree in Human Movement Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2011.

After the Olympics she started her master's degree, but didn't have time to complete it.

Van Dijk started her career as a speed skater.

As a very young child, she had performed in natural ice skating tours and, at the age of eight, she became a member of a local speed skating club.

During the winter months, Van Dijk trained almost every day at the local speed skating rink in Utrecht.

She did this from when she was aged twelve until she was twenty years old.

Van Dijk competed five times in the junior Dutch Allround Championships; she finished in tenth place on two occasions in the all-around competition and in fourth place in the 3000m in 2005.

She also rode the track record at the 5000 metres.

When she was ten years old, Van Dijk started, together with her two brothers and Mariëlle Kerste, cross-training on a bike during the summer and she began competing in regional races.

In 2005, Van Dijk again won the Dutch national junior title in the individual time trial but finished second in the road race, again behind Vos.

Van Dijk left Harmelen for her study to Amsterdam in 2006, where she still lives.

During the first years in Amsterdam she shared her apartment with Mariëlle Kerste, her best friend and also a Dutch cyclist.

Kerste moved out a few years later and Van Dijk has since shared an apartment with the Dutch cyclist Hannah Walter.

She gave up speed skating and switched to cycling full-time after winning the national cycling championship for the fifth time in 2007.

Along with her world title successes, Van Dijk has also twice been European track champion, three times European time trial champion and has won six World Cup races.

In 2007, when Van Dijk was considered for selection in regional speed skating, she had to choose between speed skating and cycling– ultimately, she chose cycling.

Van Dijk achieved two stage victories in the Tour Féminin en Limousin and in the Giro della Toscana.

In the middle of the season, Van Dijk suffered a clavicle fracture and as a result was hampered in the national championships.

She won her first world title on the track in the scratch race in 2008.

She finished 10th at the U-23 European Championships in Valkenburg and at the World University Cycling Championship, Van Dijk won the individual time trial and finished second in the road race.

At the end of the season, Van Dijk was a reserve at the road world championships but she did not race.

At the Dutch National Track Championships she won bronze in the individual pursuit.

Van Dijk won the first stage in the Tour of Chongming Island and finished second in the general classification.

Besides road cycling she was also a track cyclist until 2012.

Van Dijk is known as a time trial specialist and is five times world champion.

She became Road World Champion in 2012, 2013 and 2016 with her respective trade teams in the team time trial and in 2013 also in the individual time trial.

In 2012, she competed in three disciplines at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where she helped Marianne Vos win the gold medal in the road race, finished eighth in the time trial and sixth in the team pursuit.

Ellen van Dijk grew up in Harmelen, Utrecht together with her two older brothers along with her mother and father.

Besides speed skating and cycling, she also played volleyball and performed gymnastics when she was a child.

In December 2014 Van Dijk moved to Woerden.

In 2015, she won the time trial at the first European Games and the silver medal in the team time trial at the world championships.

Van Dijk started as a speed skater and as part of her skating training she undertook cycling as part of cross-training in summer.

She excelled at both, competing nationally at junior level.