Can it realy be true – a 39 year old racer is absolutly dominating the womens pro peloton? – News & Racing

and either way – is this what womens pro cyling needs or makes the sport a “better” place for young and upcoming females – I wonder

I mean if you go off World tour level bike retail sales you clearly reach peak physical race condition at 55 years old with a slight beer belly 80mm of stem spacers and your saddle too low.

And a GFNY bright green jersey adds 20Watts

I don’t really know either way, but is it much different to what she has been doing for quite a few years now?
And if Anna van der Breggen was still racing I would like to think the gaps would be smaller at least

True, it would at least be a battle if AvdB would still be around. But what really bothers me with AvV is that she showed no signs of world class talent in her 20s. Her first win was 2010 when she was 28. And now she is dominating. The only way she doesn’t win is by teams ganging up on her or because she is not the best bike handler.

Did she not only start racing at 26?

I don’t see anything weird about her cycling history. She was in grad school working on a Masters in epidemiology and raced the college championships in 2008. She also came to cycling after playing soccer/football. Like many of the female athletes, she came to cycling late, but had previous athletic career.

I don’t see anything that looks fishy or particularly different from the rest of the woman’s peloton. I also suspect that there is a ton of untapped potential in the woman’s peloton and that we will see a bunch of riders really improve their performance over the next year or two because of the increased interest in woman’s cycling. There are so many stories like Veronica Evers, who started cycling a couple years ago on a lark and is improving very rapidly.

In general I think AvV is light, powerful and has excellent recovery, just like Pogacar and the rest of the top men. The fact that she isn’t a spring chicken like the new crop of GC riders doesn’t matter, to me at least.

Her dominance is specific though and she’s not a Cannibal. Needs the right type of course that she’s particularly built her training for. Nobody can come close to her on her kind of course. But she can’t beat Vos, Wiebes, Balsamo, Kopecky, Norsgard on their kind of courses. Or pure strength riders like Dygert or Van Dijk on their kind of courses.

Regarding not showing anything when she was younger… she started racing late and she was chubby for a bike racer for a long time. The results started coming as she ramped up her training volume and then went on the whole massive mileage thing.

Less riders, smaller depth of the field, better chance for an athlete to stand out and stay longer at the pointy end of the elite.

I didn’t know that she started racing so late. That obviously changes things. But her 100km solos and the huge amount of time she puts into her opponents is a bit much I think to no at least ask some questions.

Excellent recovery. You mean like a 23 year old Pogacar, not a 40 year old Valverde, right?

“I don’t see anything weird about her cycling history”

Then you are wilfully ignorant. After 9 years of averaging around 600 PCS points and ranking outside the top ten she suddenly transformed at the age of 34 into the number one rider in the World. Late career transformations are always suspect.