After almost two decades of success on her bike and fresh from winning a medal on the velodrome at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Kirsten Wild (Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling) is ready to bid farewell to professional cycling on home roads. Her last race is scheduled to be the Simac Ladies Tour, known as the Boels Ladies Tour in recent years and originally the Holland Ladies Tour, a UCI Women’s WorldTour event on 24-29 August. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Dutch road and track specialist had previously made plans to retire in 2020, until the Olympic Games were pushed back due to the pandemic. “I’ve always dreamed of an Olympic medal and I finally got one,” she said. And Wild can celebrate now, a couple of weeks after taking third in the Omnium, another demonstration of the broad range of her talents that earned her a stellar record which includes 17 UCI World Championship medals across all disciplines – eight of them gold.
This time, “the colour didn’t matter so much to me but if you look at how the race went, this feels like a win”, Kirsten Wild told us after snatching the Omnium bronze in the very last sprint of the points race. “I was convinced that Amy [Pieters] and I could have taken a medal in the Madison too if we hadn’t crashed.”
The Dutch duo eventually finished fourth, just off the podium, but Wild bounced back in style in the Omnium, the very last cycling event of an epic two weeks at Tokyo 2020. Then it was time for her to enjoy herself, ahead of her last appearances as a professional cyclist: “The week after was very busy with celebrations. But it was all very, very nice and positive. We even got to meet our Prime Minister Mark Rutte and the King and Queen of the Netherlands.”
Putting it simply, “recovery wasn't the first priority”, Wild acknowledges with a laugh. “But since mid-August I have slowly returned to the rhythm of being a professional cyclist”. Not for long though, as Wild gets ready to retire at the age of 38. However, she still has a very important race to ride in the Simac Ladies Tour, “one of the biggest stage races in the Netherlands”, says Wild, and a very special event in her route to becoming an icon of modern cycling.
This will be her 14th participation in the event, more than any other race in her career except for the Dutch National Championships. Wild quickly proved her worth on these roads, winning the best young rider classification as early as 2004, aged 21, when she was still a young champion in the making with the @Home Cycling Team.
Alongside her many rainbow jerseys from the track, Kirsten Wild has claimed more than 100 victories on the road, including in Belgium, China and Qatar. “I am very proud of the 10 stages I won in the Holland Ladies Tour”, she stresses. “I won my first stage in 2007. It was a bit of a surprise to beat the best sprinters of those days.” The runner-up that day in Apeldoorn was no less than Germany’s Ina-Yoko Teutenberg.
“The Simac Ladies Tour is a well organised race with varied stages, which requires different skills like climbing, echelons, sprints, time-trials,” explains Wild. The 23rd edition begins with a prologue in Ede and is packed full of challenges. Stage 1 starts in Zwolle to pay tribute to both Kirsten Wild and Anna van der Breggen, two champions who hail from the area.
“It will be very special,” reflects Wild, planning more success at her home race if she can find her road legs. “This year I focused 100% on the Olympic track races, so it's hard to say what my level is, especially against riders who have prepared for the road.”
This won't prevent her from enjoying her special moment. “As always, my approach is to have fun and a good time with the team,” she says, with the hope that “good results” will come along. Whatever the result, Kirsten Wild is without doubt one of the greatest champions of her sport. The Simac Ladies Tour will be the occasion to thank her for all her exploits.