‘The nerves earlier than every season begin are at all times the identical’ – Marianne Vos eyes third decade in professional highway racing

As she enters her twentieth season as a professional and begins the hunt for win quantity 256 of her profession, you may be forgiven for considering that Marianne Vos may be getting a bit uninterested in life on the highway and all the large calls for skilled biking makes on an individual.

Furthermore, Vos now has a number of World Championships and Giro d’Italia wins, an Olympic gold, and a seemingly limitless succession of Monument titles and Grand Tour stage victories already to her title – and that is simply to say the very best of the highlights. So maybe the sense of getting achieved nearly all the pieces the game can supply may effectively be getting a shade overwhelming too.

Well, suppose once more. As Vos readied for her 2025 highway debut on the latest Visma-Lease a Bike coaching camp final month in Spain, she insisted that when her season will get underway – which it lastly does this weekend on the Trofeo Alfredo Binda – regardless of the familiarity of all of it, she’ll be anticipating the acquainted sensation of butterflies within the abdomen, too.

“You might say that in a technique, you’d have seen all of it, however there may be a lot that adjustments, and a race isn’t the identical, both,” Vos informed a small group of reporters.

“You’ve seen development in ladies’s biking, for positive, particularly, however that additionally means a development in information and vitamin and tools and coaching. So it’s essential to hold bettering and simply problem your self to remain on the highest degree.

“Actually, in that means, it is nonetheless precisely the identical and the nerves earlier than the beginning of the season are nonetheless precisely the identical, too. For some folks this stuff could also be completely different over time. But not me.”

All change within the peloton

Vos does recognise that even when she’s coming to the beginning of her twentieth season with the identical method and emotions, some issues have modified radically since she final raced (and received) on the Gravel Worlds final October.

For one factor, there have been some vital alterations in group line-ups, from Demi Vollering going to FDJ-Suez to the return of Anna van der Breggen to SD Worx-Protime, and from Elisa Longo Borghini shifting to UAE Team ADQ to the signing of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot at Visma-Lease a Bike.

Then there have been main reworkings of rosters of different high groups like Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto and Lidl-Trek, too. 

Vos could be very a lot in favour of the important thing names being much less concentrated in two or three main squads. But that viewpoint is maybe extra because of her wider-than-usual perspective on the game after so lengthy racing than it’s being simply because it may be higher for her personal group.

As Vos sees it, “I do not suppose it’s going to completely change this 12 months, you’ll nonetheless see the identical names on the entrance. But with the riders being extra unfold out and having extra competitors between them, it’s going to add some pleasure to racing.”

Regarding Visma-Lease a Bike specifically, the arrival of Ferrand-Prévot in 2025 as she switches from mountain-biking to highway is greeted with appreciable enthusiasm by Vos, saying “she’s a improbable addition to the group.” (Ferrand-Prévot is equally happy to be by her aspect, mentioning on social media earlier than the Trofeo Binda that it is going to be the primary time she’s raced alongside Vos since means again in 2016.)

“We’ve obtained to provide her the time to make that transition from MTB to highway racing, however as a rider her mentality and willpower will add worth to all of us, to the group itself,” Vos says.

“But we’ve a very nice line-up, another riders with enormous potential as effectively, so I’m trying ahead to 2025 and seeing this group develop and rise.”

There might be little doubt, although, that Vos herself will play a significant half in how Visma fares this season. Wins in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Dwars door Vlaanderen and Amstel Gold in 2024 alone present that regardless of her veteran standing she stays an enormous think about any of the most important Classics.

On high of that, factors classifications wins final summer season in each the Vuelta Femenina and Tour de France Femmes, in addition to victories from February to October are all testomony to her underlying consistency within the stage races as effectively. At 37, Vos continues to be a surefire worth, then, irrespective of the race. 

So what’s going to change for her? Vos’ predominant innovation, she says, would be the addition of the revived Milan-Sanremo to her program. However, challenges like Paris-Roubaix – one of many only a few main gaps in her palmarès – and the Grand Tours are all staying within the 2025 combine as effectively. 

“I sadly needed to finish my cyclocross season prematurely attributable to a calf harm, however with the highway season forward, I used to be in a position to rapidly shift my focus and put together optimally,” Vos mentioned in a press launch previous to Alfredo Binda.

“The group has already proven nice issues over the previous few weeks, so I’m actually beginning to really feel the joy.” 

Vos is getting again to grips with racing in a really acquainted occasion, one which she has received 4 instances earlier than – and she or he’s eager to go for victory once more this 12 months.

“I hope to be within the combine for the finale along with the group,” Vos mentioned within the press launch, “although it’s at all times a little bit of a wait-and-see within the first race of the season.”

“With the introduction of Milan-San Remo for ladies, Binda has taken on a barely completely different place within the biking calendar. It’s now seen extra as a preparation race, which suggests I count on a tricky race with many robust riders. It’s an ideal race, and I hope to battle for the win along with the group.”

Then only a week later it is onto the revived ladies’s version of Milan-San Remo, about which Vos proved equally enthusiastic when discussing it on the Visma coaching camp.

“It’s at all times good to do one thing new. San Remo is improbable to have as a objective, and it is stunning that it is again,” she mentioned.

“For me, I’ll focus to be at my best all through, and naturally, there are some particular targets, and Paris-Roubaix is certainly one to actually go for. But it is nonetheless biking, something can occur. So I’ll actually attempt to preserve an excellent degree all through the entire season and peak within the races we goal.”

More gravel, much less gravel?

Vos’ first victory in a World Championships dates from 2006 on the highway, however her newest, in gravel, is as latest as final October. That triumph doesn’t suggest she’ll focus extra on the gravel races in 2025, she mentioned in January, however equally she’s not ruling out a full-time change to the off-road self-discipline for when she retires, as a number of top-name riders like Alejandro Valverde have finished. 

“It’s too quickly to say, I’m not fascinated with what I do after this profession. I actually preferred the Gravel Worlds and there could also be some additions of gravel races to my calendar. But for now my objective will at all times be to attempt to discover the stability between the gravel and the highway season.” 

She is equally non-committal about whether or not she might be racing in Rwanda within the Road World Championships in September, saying merely that it is “not on this system but. I have to have some ultimate ideas about it, however in any case it is very nice it is happening there.” 

Time and once more within the interview, Vos’ sense of a broad perspective on how the game has developed and is creating is obvious, whether or not it is discussing the primary ever Road World Championships in Africa or the most important adjustments in group rosters for 2025.

But relatively than be completely centered on the highest finish of the game the place she stays for now, it is attention-grabbing that one in all her largest issues for the way forward for ladies’s biking couldn’t be additional away from WorldTour racing and her personal veteran standing. 

When it involves prize cash and wages, “there’s been enormous development [since she turned pro] and step-by-step it’s going to develop even additional. But the principle factor perhaps is that due to that development there’s additionally going to be an even bigger hole between the highest groups and the smaller ones: the WorldTour and the ProTeams, in addition to the riders that need to step up from juniors or amateurs.

“So there ought to perhaps be extra of a spotlight to work on this step-up degree or class in an excellent place. These are a very powerful for growth.” 

She provides that the UCI is conscious of the problem and factors out, too, that Visma-Lease a Bike supply loads of alternatives for riders to progress as effectively. That mentioned, Vos additionally recognises that the distinction in ladies’s biking between when she turned professional and 2025 is gigantic. 

“In common, we’ve moved ahead so much, if I take a look at the place the place ladies’s biking was 20 years in the past, in comparison with now, there’s been enormous development, I couldn’t have imagined this. So there may be not a lot to want for, even when after all there are at all times extra steps to take.” 

“I would not say there was one explicit factor for change, it is improbable there’s extra broadcasting of girls’s biking and for a broader viewers, all the pieces is extra recognisable – the races and the calendars we’ve, the groups and riders.

“So there’s extra background. And the extra you recognize, the extra you’re feeling the emotion as effectively. And that is what sport is about.”