page_title: Anna van der Breggen
section_title: 2015: First Giro Rosa win
hierarchical_section_title: Anna van der Breggen / Career / 2015: First Giro Rosa win
caption_attribution_description: D71_2260_DxO
context_page_description: Anna van der Breggen is a Dutch professional road bicycle racer, who currently rides for UCI Women's Continental Team Boels–Dolmans. She won the gold medal in the women's road race at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and has won the Giro d'Italia Femminile on two occasions. In 2018, she won the women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships.
  Considered one of the most versatile riders of her generation, van der Breggen excels in both the one-day classics and stage races, particularly when run on a hilly terrain. Apart from the Olympic road race title and two Giro Rosa titles, other notable wins include La Flèche Wallonne on five consecutive occasions, Liège–Bastogne–Liège two times, the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race, Strade Bianche, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the European Road Race Championships. In addition, she has won the general classification and numerous stages in smaller stage races.
  In 2017, she won all three Ardennes classics races in one week, which earned her the nickname Queen of the Ardennes. She went on to secure her second Giro d'Italia win the following summer.
context_section_description: She recovered from her pelvic fracture in the winter of 2015 and won her first major classic, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, in late February. Van der Breggen had broken away from a lead group together with Ellen van Dijk on the Molenberg, at 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the finish. She beat her fellow Dutch in the sprint. The following week, she was second in Le Samyn des Dames. In April she won La Flèche Wallonne with an attack at the foot of the Mur de Huy, and recorded several podium positions in one-day races. She highlighted her stage race potential again by taking the overall classification at the Grand Prix Elsy Jacobs, which she led from the prologue to the end of the race.
  In June, she won the bronze medal in the women's road race at the inaugural European Games in Baku. She was part of a four-woman breakaway together with Ellen van Dijk, Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Alena Amialiusik, when an acceleration by van der Breggen caused her teammate van Dijk to be dropped, for the race to be decided in a three-up sprint. Van der Breggen led out the sprint from afar but was passed by both Amialiusik and Niewiadoma.
  Van der Breggen claimed her greatest career victory to that point in July when she won the general classification at the Giro d'Italia Femminile, the most important stage race on the women's calendar and the only Grand Tour for women. She finished fourth in the prologue and second in stage 2, after which she remained in the top-three until the Alpine stages. Van der Breggen was in third position overall behind maglia rosa wearer Megan Guarnier, when she moved into the race lead on the penultimate day after winning the individual time trial to Nebbiuno. She won the time trial more than one minute ahead of Guarnier and secured her overall win with a second place in the final stage. Later she won the second edition of La Course by Le Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées; and she won the final stage of the Belgium Tour in Geraardsbergen.
  At the World Championships in September in Richmond, she claimed the silver medals in both the individual time trial and the road race. She finished at two seconds from Linda Villumsen in the time trial, and was narrowly beaten by Lizzie Armitstead in the road race after she started the sprint from afar. She ended the year as second in the UCI Road World Cup, behind Armitstead, and was awarded the Gerrit Schulte Trophy for best female Dutch cyclist of the year.
caption: Van der Breggen soloed to victory at the second La Course on the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
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