When Daniek Hengeveld was simply 18 and taking up her first UCI race within the elite ranks, she virtually delivered the most important of upsets on stage 1 of the Healthy Ageing Tour, simply caught on the run into the road after she took a final lap flyer. The formidable break didn’t work again then – however on Friday together with her new crew, Ceratizit-WNT on the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under, it did.
In her first race with Ceratizit-WNT, Hengeveld foiled the plans of the sprinters on stage 1 to take out her first Women’s WorldTour win, bouncing again from a crash on the Tour of Britain final yr that left her out for months and battling to search out her toes.
“I misplaced slightly little bit of confidence after the final two years and, effectively, I used to be lastly racing like I used to be 18 once more,” Hengeveld instructed reporters after the stage. “I used to be like – Oh, this is the reason I race. It’s very nice.”
The 22-year-old, who began with Continental Team GT Krush Tunap in 2021 took her first win there at a prologue on the Belgrade GP Women’s Tour, after which moved as much as the WorldTour with DSM-firmenich PostNL in 2023, the place she stayed for 2 seasons.
The Dutch rider then headed to Ceratizit-WNT this season and instantly used her time trialling expertise to maintain the pursuit at bay within the 102km stage from Brighton to Aldinga and, lastly, grasp the second and unquestionably greatest victory of her profession by attacking and launching solo at beneath 50km to go.
“At the tip, I simply hear my sport director in my ear, ‘come on, come on, come on’. It’s like, ‘Oh, fuck, perhaps they’re actually shut!” stated Hengeveld.
They weren’t, because it turned out, it was simply pure pleasure.
“I recognize that he was nonetheless cheering me on as a result of it gave me the additional Watts.”
The assist maybe means all of the extra given the yr she has simply had.
“The comeback from the crash was really actually laborious,” stated Hengeveld. “I struggled quite a bit, particularly with the psychological a part of it. I might prepare, and I nonetheless take pleasure in coaching, but it surely was simply laborious to see if I really nonetheless favored to trip my bike, and the way it’s to really trip with a crew who additionally believes in me.
“And it really works out on this crew, and it is really actually good, it is good, it is a good feeling,” stated Hengeveld, who had simply taken to the rostrum together with her new teammates, who rode straight over to cheer her on and share the second.
“It’s a small crew, and I already know … that it’s really like a household setting. And I actually benefit from the time with them and simply have enjoyable and get the wins like that. It works out already right here. We need to carry on going like this,” stated Hengeveld, who’s trying towards the Classics later this season.
“It could not begin higher than it did this summer season right here with an assault and profitable solo,” she stated. “So it is a good begin.”
What’s extra, it’s a begin that has not solely given her a stage win but in addition put her within the ochre jersey of the race chief, with a margin of 43 seconds to her nearest rival. There are nevertheless two robust levels nonetheless to go, with Saturday ending atop Willunga Hill and Sunday delivering greater than 2,000m of vertical ascent because the race takes on 5 Stirling climbs.
“I’m not the standard climber so we are going to see if I can keep within the chief’s jersey,” stated Hengeveld.
“But in any other case, I need to give it to one among my teammates. That’s additionally fantastic, and we’re simply gonna be aggressive once more, and hopefully it’s going to work out once more.”
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