Early life and amateur career 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 considered quitting the sport after she suffered in the back of the peloton during the
Grote Prijs Gerrie Knetemann. 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. 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 preparation for the 2014 season, she announced she would be joining the team.
2014: Stage race success 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.
2015: First Giro Rosa win after winning
2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 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 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. Van der Breggen led out the sprint from afar but was passed by both Amialiusik and Niewiadoma. on the
Champs-Élysées in Paris. Van der Breggen claimed her greatest career victory to that point in July when she won the general classification at the
Giro d'Italia Femminile, the most important stage race on the women's calendar and the only
Grand Tour for women. after which she remained in the top-three until the Alpine stages. Van der Breggen was in third position overall behind
maglia rosa wearer
Megan Guarnier, when she moved into the race lead on the penultimate day after winning the
individual time trial to
Nebbiuno. She won the time trial more than one minute ahead of Guarnier and secured her overall win with a second place in the
final stage. Later she won the second edition of
La Course by Le Tour de France on the
Champs-Élysées; and she won the final stage of the
Belgium Tour in
Geraardsbergen. At the
World Championships in September in
Richmond, she claimed the silver medals in both the
individual time trial and the
road race. She finished at two seconds from
Linda Villumsen in the time trial, and was narrowly beaten by
Lizzie Armitstead in the road race after she started the sprint from afar. She ended the year as second in the
UCI Road World Cup, behind Armitstead, and was awarded the Gerrit Schulte Trophy for best female Dutch cyclist of the year.
2016: Olympic and European champion Van der Breggen opened the 2016 season with 5th place at the
Strade Bianche, 4th at the
Ronde van Drenthe and 6th at the
Trofeo Alfredo Binda in March; but failed to claim a victory until she successfully defended her title at
La Flèche Wallonne. She counterattacked a move by
Katarzyna Niewiadoma on the Côte de Cherave, at from the finish, and was followed by only four others over the top. She broke clear again with
Evelyn Stevens at from the finish and powered away from Stevens on the finishing
Mur de Huy to claim her second victory in succession. In July, she finished third overall in the
Giro Rosa. She was third in the prologue, but lost time in the mountain stages in the
Dolomites. She climbed back to third place after finishing second in
stage 7's individual time trial and held on to her podium place until the finish. in
Rio after winning the gold medal. On 7 August 2016, van der Breggen won the gold medal in the
women's road race at the
Rio Olympics. Three days later she won the bronze medal in the
individual time trial, 11 seconds behind winner
Kristin Armstrong. Following her Olympic success, she was
knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau. In mid-September, she took part in the
European Road Championships. She finished second in the
time trial behind
Ellen van Dijk. In the road race she followed an acceleration of Niewiadoma on the final climb, together with Longo Borghini,
Alena Amialiusik and
Rasa Leleivytė. Van der Breggen launched the five-woman sprint from afar and became the first ever professional European road race champion. At the
World Championships in October, she was a disappointing 13th in the
time trial and 87th in the
road race, telling reporters she "didn't have the legs anymore after a long season".
2017: Ardennes Triple and second Giro win ''(pictured in the World Tour leader's jersey at the
2017 Holland Ladies Tour)'' After placing 15th in both the
Ronde van Drenthe and the
Tour of Flanders, and finishing second overall in the
Healthy Ageing Tour in early 2017, van der Breggen became the first woman to win all three of the
Ardennes classics in a single year. She won the rebooted
Amstel Gold Race with an attack at from the finish. Three days later, she secured her third straight
Flèche Wallonne win after powering away on the
Mur de Huy, before emerging triumphant at the first ever
Liège–Bastogne–Liège the following Sunday. Her dominance in the climbers races earned her the nickname
Queen of the Ardennes. Three weeks later she won the
Tour of California, after she surpassed
Katie Hall during the last stage thanks to bonus seconds won at an intermediate sprint. In the summer, she won the
Giro Rosa for the second time. Her team had won the opening
Team time trial, and van der Breggen moved into the race lead after placing second in stage 2. She won the
final general classification with more than a minute over
Elisa Longo Borghini and
Annemiek van Vleuten. After
Tom Dumoulin's win in the
men's Giro d'Italia held in May, it was the first time a Grand Tour was won by both a Dutch man and woman in the same year. Later, van der Breggen won a stage and was second overall in the
Holland Ladies Tour, which secured her lead in the final standing of the
UCI Women's World Tour ahead of van Vleuten. At the
Road World Championships in Norway her team finished second to in the team time trial event. She also placed second in the
individual time trial behind van Vleuten, and eighth in the
road race.
2018: Queen of the Classics and first rainbow jersey )'' won four
World Tour races in the spring of 2018. As world number one, she kicked off the 2018 season at the
Strade Bianche. She won the race, in abysmal weather, after an attack on the penultimate gravel sector of Colle Pinzuto at from the finish. Three weeks later she won the
Tour of Flanders after a solo breakaway. Van der Breggen made her decisive move on the
Kruisberg and increased her lead over the
Oude Kwaremont and
Paterberg to claim her first Tour of Flanders win. The following week she won the opening time trial and finished fourth overall in the
Healthy Ageing Tour, before attempting to defend her titles in the Ardennes classics. but won her
fourth consecutive Flèche Wallonne three days later, on her 28th birthday. She concluded the
Ardennes week with her second win in
Liège–Bastogne–Liège, after she powered away from
Amanda Spratt on the uphill drag to the finish line. Following the spring classics, van der Breggen was unable to mount a defence of her title at the
Tour of California and rode at the
Emakumeen Euskal Bira instead: the two races clashed on the calendar, Boels–Dolmans did not have enough riders or staff to send squads to both, and chose to enter the European race. Van der Breggen also elected not to defend her Giro Rosa title in 2018, choosing instead to focus on preparing for a bid to win her first title at the Road World Championships. The following month she raced at the
European Road Championships, where she was narrowly defeated in the time trial by countrywoman Ellen van Dijk, securing a one-two for the Netherlands. At the Worlds in
Innsbruck in September, she started her campaign by taking a silver alongside her Boels–Dolmans team-mates in the
women's team time trial. She took a second silver in the
individual time trial, where she was denied the rainbow jersey by her compatriot van Vleuten and formed part of a Dutch clean sweep of the podium places ahead of the third placed van Dijk. She finally won her first Worlds gold in the
road race, bridging over from a chase group to a group of five at the head of the race on the penultimate climb, before launching a solo attack with 39 km to go and crossing the finishing line alone with a lead of over three and a half minutes over runner-up Amanda Spratt.
2019: Success on- and off-road Van der Breggen started her 2019 season relatively quietly, making her first two road appearances in the spring at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and
Strade Bianche: in the latter race she worked as a domestique for team-mate
Annika Langvad, who finished in second. Having made some appearances in mountain bike racing the previous year, in March she entered the
Cape Epic mountain bike stage race alongside Langvad: the duo won the race by over half an hour. She subsequently announced that she would not defend her Tour of Flanders title so she could recover from her exertions at the Cape Epic, focusing instead on the Health Ageing Tour and the Ardennes Classics later in April. In May she won the overall at the
Tour of California, as well as taking the opening stage after attacking on the final climb of the day to cross the finishing line alone. Later in the year, van der Breggen won the
GP de Plouay – Bretagne with a solo attack from the finishing line. At the
Road World Championships in
Yorkshire, she took two silver medals: in the
individual time trial she finished behind champion
Chloé Dygert and ahead of van Vleuten, whilst in the
road race she acted as a marker in a chase group attempting to reel in her team-mate van Vleuten, who made an ultimately successful long-range solo attack with to go. Van der Breggen attacked fellow chaser Amanda Spratt in the closing kilometres of the course to secure the silver.
2020: Third Giro win and Worlds double In 2020, van der Breggen enjoyed some early season success at the
Setmana Ciclista Valenciana in February: she won the race's second stage with a solo attack on the final climb, the -long Alto de Tudons, taking the overall race lead in the process, which she held on the remaining two stages of the race. In May she announced that she would retire from competition at the end of 2021 after the postponed
2020 Summer Olympics, which were scheduled to be held in the summer of 2021 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Upon the resumption of racing in July, she finished third in the
Emakumeen Nafarroako Klasikoa and second in
Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria before placing fourth at
Strade Bianche. In August she won the
Dutch National Road Race Championships for the first time in her career: before the halfway point of the race she and
Anouska Koster bridged across to van der Breggen's team-mate
Jip van den Bos, who had earlier broken away from the peloton. Van der Breggen eventually dropped the other two riders at the front, whilst they were being chased by another three rider group of van Vleuten, Vos and
Amy Pieters, which similarly disintegrated when van Vleuten dropped the other two riders. Van der Breggen crossed the finish line over a minute ahead of van Vlueten in second. Shortly afterwards she took the gold medal in the individual time trial at the
European Road Championships in
Plouay, finishing 30 seconds ahead of van Dijk. The following month van der Breggen won the
Giro Rosa, becoming the fourth woman to win three editions of the race. She went into the lead on the penultimate eighth stage, where she was pipped to the stage win by Elisa Longo Borghini after the pair went clear of the rest of the leading group on the final climb, taking the pink jersey from Katarzyna Niewiadoma, who in turn had inherited it after previous leader van Vleuten crashed out of the race on the previous day. Later that month, at the
UCI Road World Championships in
Imola, van der Breggen was crowned
world time trial champion for the first time, having previously taken four silver medals in the event: she finished ahead of
Marlen Reusser and van Dijk after reigning champion Dygert crashed out of the race. She went on to win a second
road race world title, following and overhauling an acceleration by van Vleuten with an attack over the top of the penultimate climb of the Cima Gallisterna with to the finish, and taking victory with a margin of 1 minute 40 seconds over silver and bronze medallists van Vleuten and Longo Borghini. In doing so she became only the second rider in history to win world titles in the time trial and the road race in the same year, after
Jeannie Longo in 1995. Shortly after the Worlds, van der Breggen set a new record for wins at
Flèche Wallonne when she won the race for a sixth time, moving one clear of Vos, outclimbing
Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and
Demi Vollering up the final ascent of the Mur de Huy to clinch victory.
2021: Fourth Giro win, retirement In 2021, van der Breggen won her fourth
Giro Donne, as well as other races including
La Flèche Wallonne Féminine (for a record seventh time), the
Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, and
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. She also won the
Dutch National Time Trial Championships for the second time. At the
Tokyo 2020 Olympics, she won a bronze medal in the
time trial competition, before retiring from professional competition.
Directeur sportif role Following her retirement, ==Personal life==