{"id":45238,"date":"2025-08-05T09:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45238\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T09:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:02:10","slug":"i-was-very-disappointed-but-anna-van-der-breggen-finds-positive-in-debut-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/45238\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI was very disappointed\u201d \u2013 But Anna van der Breggen finds positive in debut Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/anna-van-der-breggen\" title=\"Anna van der Breggen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anna van der Breggen<\/a>, the 2025<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-de-france-femmes\" title=\"Tour de France Femmes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France Femmes<\/a> was a race of two halves. The former Olympic champion and<br \/>\nworld renowned climber made her long-awaited debut in the women\u2019s Tour after<br \/>\nreturning to competition, but things didn\u2019t go as planned in the general<br \/>\nclassification. Targeting a high overall finish, Van der Breggen instead had to<br \/>\nsettle for 11th place, undone by one bad day on the queen stage to the Col de<br \/>\nla Madeleine.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I had hoped they&#8217;d give me<br \/>\nmore space, since I was already nine minutes behind in the standings. I needed<br \/>\nmore than the two minutes I was given, but it&#8217;s good that I tried,\u201d she told Wielerflits<br \/>\nafter the final stage. \u201cI wasn&#8217;t so happy after Saturday. After seven good<br \/>\ndays, I had an off day on the worst possible day. I was very disappointed, but<br \/>\nit&#8217;s good that I&#8217;m feeling better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Van der Breggen\u2019s best result came<br \/>\non stage 5, where she sprinted to third, and she showed flashes of her old<br \/>\nstrength in the final stage by attacking and going solo for a long stretch. But<br \/>\nshe was reeled in on the final climb and finished 11th again, fitting for a<br \/>\nweek that offered both promise and frustration.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>Still, Van der Breggen remains<br \/>\noptimistic. This was her third Grand Tour since coming out of retirement, and<br \/>\nshe\u2019s using the experience to lay the groundwork for a stronger push next<br \/>\nseason. \u201cWith three Grand Tours under my belt, I can build on that for next<br \/>\nyear and try again then,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Part of what motivates her is the<br \/>\nnew landscape of the women\u2019s peloton, faster, deeper, and more professional<br \/>\nthan ever before. \u201cI know the level is very high with Pauline, but this is<br \/>\nmotivating to see,\u201d she said, referring to Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s dominant<br \/>\nTour win. \u201cOn the other hand, I also notice the pace is higher. You see more<br \/>\nteams riding together, the crews are more professional and ride in groups. The<br \/>\nlevel is very high.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Anna van der Breggen, the 2025 Tour de France Femmes was a race of two halves. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-45238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}