‘They win, I don’t’ – Pauliena Rooijakkers on trading consistency for wins with UAE Team ADQ

Dutch people have a reputation for going straight to the point when delivering their verdict about situations and people, and when it comes to her current status as a racer, certainly nobody could ever accuse 2024 Tour de France Femmes podium finisher Pauliena Rooijakkers of being indirect.

Now 32, the Dutch all-rounder has already secured a huge array of top-10 and top-five placings across stage races and all three Grand Tours, helping Rooijakkers maintain a lengthy, high-flying career in teams as prestigious as CCC-Liv, Canyon-SRAM, Fenix-Deceunink and now UAE Team ADQ.

However, Rooijakkers has very rarely turned her high level of consistency into actual triumphs. In fact, since turning pro in 2012, she’s only lifted her arms twice in victory – once in a stage of the Tour de l’Ardeche in 2017 and once in the Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria one-day race in the Basque Country in 2022.

You may like

Yet it’s never too late to say never, and while Rooijakkers is happy to recognise that more uneven top-level performers have often eclipsed her steady but unspectacular series of achievements, she is also keen to see if she can – finally – raise her own bar much higher with UAE Team ADQ.

“They’re world-class, I don’t win races, and they do,” was how Rooijakkers put it to Cyclingnews when asked if she objected to her results being overshadowed by the top flyers.

“I’m in the mix, but I’m not on the highest level, for sure. Those riders are, and for sure I want to be up there with them. But for now, I’m still feel like I’m just below them.”

This kind of directness makes a refreshing change from riders putting the blame for their lack of success on bad luck, poor choices, the wrong kind of teammates or a combination of all three. Yet even if Rooijakkers is happy to tell you exactly how things are for her right now, that doesn’t mean she’s stopped thinking about how they could be – and trying to move towards those goals, too.

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!

Her attitude towards new teammate Elisa Longo Borghini, the undisputed top name at UAE Team ADQ and with 56 wins in her palmarès, is particularly revealing in that aspect. She’ll be happy to play a team role for Longo Borghini, she says – a rider she hugely admires – and that’s partly why she was signed for UAE. But the chance of going for her own results in the team very much forms part of her personal equation as well.

“The biggest role I have here at UAE will be to work for Elisa. For sure, besides doing that, I’ll have some days [as leader], also. But the biggest focus will be on her,” she explains.

“Working for her only brings certainty for me, knowing that she can finish things off. She won the Giro twice, so come on, if I have a supporting role, then I’m happy.

You may like

“I think it’s positive in another way, too. As I said, I know how it is to be a leader. I also know how it is to work for somebody else at the World Championship, with Europeans for Demi Vollering, you know, but also for several years [at the WaowDeals team in 2018 and then in CCC-Liv] with Marianne Vos.

“So I know how that feels, and I know how it is to be a GC leader. So we can support each other, we’re really committed to each other and I can play a really good role for her. Because she’s world-class, she’s won so many races. For me, she’s the highest level possible.”

You could argue Rooijakkers’ own experience of high-level success, without actually taking victories home, could well make her an ideal leader’s teammate. As she points out, it’s not just about the racing itself, but providing the backing off the bike too. In all these areas, she’s been there in her own right, so she knows what the pressure implies – something UAE clearly appreciated when she joined them from Fenix-Deceuninck, along with her own potential.

“I think they specially saw me because of the longer, hillier stage races and they saw my quality to have a big role for the team as a support rider, but also to get some results for myself.

“As a GC rider, I know how it feels and I can bring that and understand that for Elisa, for example, to be in that role. So maybe I can support her a lot, not just in the races, but after the races too.”

2024 Tour de France Femmes: Rooijakkers (r) follows Demi Vollering on the Alpe d’Huez (Image credit: Getty Images)The 2024 Tour de France

To many fans, Rooijakkers ability on long climbs became most noticeable of all in the 2024 Tour de France, when she snapped onto the back wheel of Demi Vollering en route to Alpe d’Huez, as her compatriot tried and very narrowly failed to make enough inroads on Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney’s overall lead on one of cycling’s most famous – perhaps the most famous – climbs. Meanwhile Rooijakkers herself netted third.

Vollering had been the big favourite after her 2023 overall victory, and Puck Pieterse had been the centre of media attention at Fenix-Deceunink. But if Rooijakkers third place was a major surprise, it rounded out a spectacular week for her team, particularly with a stage win and the Best Young Rider’s classification for Pieterse, too.

Rooijakkers (3-r) on the final podium of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes (Image credit: Getty Images)

The 2024 Tour was the undoubted high point of her career so far, Rooijakkers admits that she was as taken aback as anybody at such a major success. Or as she puts it with that characteristic directness again:”Yeah, in the first place it was ‘Wow, how did I do this?’

“But I was really thankful that my previous coach and we’d really built towards this. [Former pro] Michel Cornelisse being my DS was very important as well. They always gave a lot to me, [saying] ‘believe me, you can do this’.”

“From thereon, with those people believing in me, like the coach and Michel, I also got the feeling that I could do this too. But to really get the third place on GC I didn’t… it was a big surprise. I didn’t expect that, no.

“But once you reach that point, then you want more and more. Knowing what I did the previous two years and knowing what I needed, training-wise, and with the training camps, too, all of that was really good. So I want to keep building like this.”

Fine-tuning at UAE Team ADQ

Rooijakkers will have a vital ally in all of this, too, given that she didn’t come alone from Fenix-Deceuninck: her old director in the Dutch squad, Cornelisse, who also followed her from Canyon-SRAM to Fenix, will continue with her again and work for UAE Team ADQ in 2026. But while his support is clearly very important, she heads towards her first race of the season this weekend at the Vuelta CV Feminas, you get the sense that what matters the most, the belief that she can raise the bar again, is stronger than ever.

And she concludes with yet another burst of that characteristic directness about her Tour de France ambitions: “I know what I did there and I know what I did for it, and so for what’s coming, I want to be the same, right?”

“Of course, people say my name and see my name and they know my name more since the Tour. But although I have those memories, I just want to look forward to what’s coming next and see what I can get out of it – without thinking too much about it.”

And whatever does happen, you can be sure Rooijakkers will tell it how it is.