Seeing Anna van der Breggen on the front of a reduced bunch on the final slopes of Lagunas de Niela during last year's Vuelta Femenina might have been a throwback, but it was hardly a surprise. With four overall victories at the Giro d'Italia Women, an Olympic gold medal, three rainbow jerseys and a host of other top-drawer victories to her name, the SD Worx-Protime rider spent years in rarified company as one of the best riders of her generation.
Quiet, modest, unassuming and always inscrutable, we'd grown accustomed to her grinding the opposition into the tarmac, simply riding away from her rivals when the race was at its hardest and the road at its steepest. Only one woman could beat her: Annemiek van Vleuten, who regularly bested her compatriot, setting up many memorable battles.
It might not have been on TV, but the penultimate stage of the 2019 Giro, where the pair fought tooth and nail on the brutal climb to Malga Montasio, was one for the ages, Van der Breggen taking the stage but not enough time to win the overall.
Last season, after three years directing her team from the SD Worx-Protime car, she returned to a transformed sport. Van Vleuten had retired, and a new, much larger crop of riders were at the top of the. She started her 2025 comeback finishing third at the Volta Feminina Valenciana, behind Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) and Marlen Reusser (Movistar), both riders she'd guided as a sports director. Strade Bianche, a race she'd also won in the first part of her career, brought another statement ride, finishing second, again behind Vollering.
The Classics were relatively quiet, with 11th-place finishes at the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège the highlights, but they were merely the prelude to the stage races where many predicted Van der Breggen would challenge.
On the brutal but familiar slopes to Lagunas de Neila, a climb on which she won the 2021 Vuelta a Burgos, she was unable to drop her rivals, eventually finishing third, Vollering once again taking the win.
"I think the most difficult for me was in the beginning of the season, were the accelerations, I did not have them anymore so much," Van der Breggen told Cyclingnews at SD Worx-Protime's team launch in Antwerp.
"I can put a pace which is not too fast for me, but hopefully high enough to drop everybody, which it wasn't. But if I am not doing that and the pace is really slow, everybody can follow, and the chance that I will be in the top three is less.
"Basically, at that point it's more riding for podium, or more, getting everything out of myself."
It was cut and paste for the Vuelta's final stage to Alto de Cotobello, and third place overall, the team's best Grand Tour result of the year, was secured. As would be expected, Van der Breggen was responsible for SD Worx's best results at both the Giro d'Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, though neither went quite to plan.
"The Giro was disappointing for me. I expected to be good, I had a good training camp in Livigno, and in the end, I was really bad, especially in the first stage, same as Lotte [Kopecky]. I was dropped at the beginning of that climb, and then I came back. But it's quite hard to finish a Giro, only hanging on, and then at one point, getting dropped and for what?"
In France, after hanging in the top five, Van der Breggen fell back in the high mountains, but former teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's (Visma-Lease a Bike) victory came as no surprise.
"She really can focus on one race and be good there, and she was in Tour, nobody came even close, that was impressive, but I did expect it," the Dutchwoman said. "But I think for all the rest, in the past you could point out the podium before, it's not like that anymore, all the racing is way closer. You need to be in good shape, mentally in a good state, and then you need to be lucky in a race."
Van der Breggen's season did anything but fade away after the Tour. She bagged time trial silver at the Rwanda World Championships, behind Reusser, but ahead of Vollering, before closing the year with third place in the European Championships road race.
Another year to improve
This year's season looks similar to 2025 for Van der Breggen, though she'll ride the UAE Tour for the first time before returning to Europe for Strade Bianche, Trofeo Alfredo Binda, the Ardennes Classics, and another tilt at the Tour. So, what can we expect?
"I don't know," she said with a smile. "I can add last season to the training I did, so that's something extra this season, I can feel that already now in training. I did way less intensity than I did last year at this point, but the level is the same. So if I can add this intensity, I hope to end up a little bit better than last year. But everybody tries to be better than last year.
"If you are 20 years old, like these girls, you can make big steps in one season. But for me, that's not gonna happen anymore, I mean, I'm 35, so I've tried basically everything already. I'll do whatever I can do, feeling how I do in the race. If I have the best legs on the day, I'll try to win, but if I see someone else [in the team] has the legs, I will try to give her the motivation that she can win. So it's just adapting to how the team is riding, how my teammates are riding and how I'm feeling."
After years of total dominance, some questioned SD Worx's form in 2025. They failed to top the rankings for only the second time in 10 years, but they won 48 races, 20 more than any other team. Still, they didn't win a Grand Tour and don't expect to this year, either.
"I think this year will be difficult, unless I make a big step, but I'm not expecting this," Van der Breggen said.
"But we'll try to work on the young ones, and if you see how much some of them got better already compared to last year, whoa! Nienke's [Vinke] young Valentina [Cavallar], she's only riding for two years, but they are crazy strong, so we just need to give them some time to get confidence and to get stronger, and then they can take my space."
