As she enters her 20th season as a professional and begins the search for win quantity 256 of her profession, you might want to be forgiven for pondering that Marianne Vos could be getting a bit of bored with lifestyles at the avenue and the entire large calls for skilled biking makes on an individual.
Moreover, Vos now has more than one International Championships and Giro d’Italia wins, an Olympic gold, and a reputedly unending succession of Monument titles and Grand Excursion degree victories already to her call – and that’s the reason simply to say the very best of the highlights. So possibly the sense of getting accomplished nearly the whole thing the game can be offering would possibly smartly be getting a color overwhelming too.
Neatly, suppose once more. As Vos readied for her 2025 avenue debut on the contemporary Visma-Rent a Motorcycle coaching camp ultimate month in Spain, she insisted that after her season will get underway – which it in any case does this weekend on the Trofeo Alfredo Binda – regardless of the familiarity of all of it, she’ll be expecting the acquainted sensation of butterflies within the abdomen, too.
“You could say that in one way, you would have seen it all, but there is so much that changes, and a race is never the same, either,” Vos instructed a small workforce of newshounds.
“You’ve seen growth in women’s cycling, for sure, specifically, but that also means a growth in knowledge and nutrition and equipment and training. So you need to keep improving and just challenge yourself to stay at the highest level.
“In truth, in that approach, it is nonetheless precisely the similar and the nerves prior to the beginning of the season are nonetheless precisely the similar, too. For some folks these items could also be other over the years. However now not me.”
Vos celebrates victory at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2024 (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)All exchange within the peloton
Vos does recognise that even if she’s coming to the start of her 20th season with the same approach and feelings, some things have changed radically since she last raced (and won) at the Gravel Worlds last October.
For one thing, there have been some significant alterations in team 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 moving to UAE Team ADQ to the signing of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot at Visma-Lease a Bike.
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Then there have been major reworkings of rosters of other top teams like Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto and Lidl-Trek, too.
Vos is very much in favour of the key names being less concentrated in two or three major squads. But that point of view is perhaps more thanks to her wider-than-usual perspective on the sport after so long racing than it is being just because it might be better for her own team.
As Vos sees it, “I do not believe it is going to utterly exchange this yr, you are going to nonetheless see the similar names on the entrance. However with the riders being extra unfold out and having extra pageant between them, it is going to upload some pleasure to racing.”
Regarding Visma-Lease a Bike in particular, the arrival of Ferrand-Prévot in 2025 as she switches from mountain-biking to road is greeted with considerable enthusiasm by Vos, saying “she’s an incredible addition to the workforce.” (Ferrand-Prévot is equally pleased to be by her side, pointing out on social media before the Trofeo Binda that it will be the first time she’s raced alongside Vos since way back in 2016.)
“We now have were given to offer her the time to make that transition from MTB to avenue racing, however as a rider her mentality and resolution will upload worth to all folks, to the workforce itself,” Vos says.
“However we’ve got a truly great line-up, another riders with large possible as smartly, so I am having a look ahead to 2025 and seeing this workforce develop and upward push.”
There can be little doubt, though, that Vos herself will play a major part in how Visma fares this season. Wins in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Dwars door Vlaanderen and Amstel Gold in 2024 alone show that despite her veteran status she remains a massive factor in any of the major Classics.
On top of that, points classifications wins last summer in both the Vuelta Femenina and Tour de France Femmes, as well as victories from February to October are all testament to her underlying consistency in the stage races as well. At 37, Vos is still a surefire value, then, no matter the race.
So what will change for her? Vos’ main innovation, she says, will be the addition of the revived Milan-Sanremo to her program. However, challenges like Paris-Roubaix – one of the very few major gaps in her palmarès – and the Grand Tours are all staying in the 2025 mix as well.
“I sadly needed to finish my cyclocross season in advance because of a calf harm, however with the street season forward, I used to be in a position to briefly shift my focal point and get ready optimally,” Vos said in a press release prior to Alfredo Binda.
“The workforce has already proven good things during the last few weeks, so I’m truly beginning to really feel the joy.”
Vos is getting back to grips with racing in a very familiar event, one which she has won four times before – and she’s keen to go for victory again this year.
“I am hoping to be within the combine for the finale at the side of the workforce,” Vos stated within the press unencumber, “though it’s always a bit of a wait-and-see in the first race of the season.”
“With the introduction of Milan-San Remo for women, Binda has taken on a slightly different place in the cycling calendar. It’s now seen more as a preparation race, which means I expect a tough race with many strong riders. It’s a great race, and I hope to fight for the win together with the team.”
Then only a week later it is onto the revived ladies’s version of Milan-San Remo, about which Vos proved similarly enthusiastic when discussing it on the Visma coaching camp.
“It’s always nice to do something new. San Remo is fantastic to have as a goal, and it’s beautiful that it’s back,” she stated.
“For me, I’ll focus to be at my very best throughout, and of course, there are some specific targets, and Paris-Roubaix is definitely one to really go for. But it’s still cycling, anything can happen. So I will really try to maintain a good level throughout the whole season and peak in the races we target.”
2024 Gravel International Championships: Vos races in opposition to victory (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)Extra gravel, much less gravel?
Vos’ first victory in a International Championships dates from 2006 at the avenue, however her newest, in gravel, is as contemporary as ultimate October. That triumph does not imply she’ll focal point extra at the gravel races in 2025, she stated in January, however similarly she’s now not ruling out a full-time transfer to the off-road self-discipline for when she retires, as a number of top-name riders like Alejandro Valverde have executed.
“It’s too soon to say, I’m not thinking about what I do after this career. I really liked the Gravel Worlds and there may be some additions of gravel races to my calendar. But for now my goal will always be to try to find the balance between the gravel and the road season.”
She is similarly non-committal about whether or not she shall be racing in Rwanda within the Highway International Championships in September, pronouncing merely that it is “not on the program yet. I need to have some final thoughts about it, but in any case it’s really nice it’s taking place there.”
Over and over again within the interview, Vos’ sense of a large point of view on how the game has evolved and is creating is obvious, whether or not it is discussing the primary ever Highway International Championships in Africa or the key adjustments in workforce rosters for 2025.
However quite than be utterly centered at the peak finish of the game the place she stays for now, it is fascinating that one among her largest considerations for the way forward for ladies’s biking may just now not be additional clear of WorldTour racing and her personal veteran standing.
In the case of prize cash and wages, “there’s been huge growth [since she turned pro] and step by step it’ll grow even further. But the main thing maybe is that because of that growth there’s also going to be a bigger gap between the top teams and the smaller ones: the WorldTour and the ProTeams, as well as the riders that want to step up from juniors or amateurs.
“So there will have to perhaps be extra of a focal point to paintings in this step-up stage or class in a just right position. Those are a very powerful for construction.”
She adds that the UCI is aware of the issue and points out, too, that Visma-Lease a Bike offer plenty of opportunities for riders to progress as well. That said, Vos also recognises that the contrast in women’s cycling between when she turned pro and 2025 is enormous.
“Usually, we’ve got moved ahead so much, if I have a look at where the place ladies’s biking was once twenty years in the past, in comparison to now, there may be been large expansion, I may just now not have imagined this. So there isn’t a lot to pray for, even supposing in fact there are at all times extra steps to take.”
“I would not say there was once one specific factor for exchange, it is implausible there may be extra broadcasting of girls’s biking and for a broader target audience, the whole thing is extra recognisable – the races and the calendars we’ve got, the groups and riders.
“So there’s more background. And the more you know, the more you feel the emotion as well. And that’s what sport is about.”
2006 International Championships: Vos celebrates her first elite avenue gold (Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)
