Anna VanderMeiden

A fresh face for 2023, Anna joins the team straight from the junior ranks where she was a double national champion in 2021.

Her entry into the sport of cycling is a “nice and simple one” by her own admission. Her dad was a keen cyclist himself so when Anna was younger, she wanted to ride a bike too and at the age of around six or seven, she started on the mountain bike. Enjoying it so much, she kept the hobby up and then got her first road bike around one and a half years later. A fan of the speed and thrill you get while riding on the road, Anna also likes freedom bike riding gives you and the ability to visit other places.

Cycling wasn’t her only love though, with Anna a very active speed skater; something she still likes to pursue to this day as a good way to keep fit in the off-season. Admittedly Anna says she “isn’t very good at it” but still very much enjoys it and the “good core workout and stability” is helpful for her riding. Interestingly, her sporting idol hails from speed skating too, Ireen Wüst, who’s career longevity and success, alongside how strong and brave she is something that Anna really admires and dreams to achieve too in her career.

With that transition immediately from juniors to elite racing, Anna hopes that she can settle in well and do her best for the team with it both being an “exciting new adventure” but also “pretty scary” too. That adventure will be made a bit easier with Anna already knowing Elise [Uijen] well and fellow new-rider Nienke – having competed against and with her in the last two years.

Open and talkative, Anna would describe herself as “crazy”, “positive” and “driven”. Chuckling to herself while explaining the first one, she explains that she’s not that great at doing nothing and that her music taste is wild with mostly rock and punk, but classical, pop and anything else thrown into the mix too. It does have its positives though because with all her energy and “crazy” then it helps Anna go “100 percent for things”; which is further shown by her “positive” and “driven” attributes too.

With all that energy and focus Anna managed to teach herself how to play guitar without any proper lessons. In her downtime you can often find her honing her skills and learning new songs – and with her music taste, who knows what genre that will be from! If not, she enjoys socialising with friends and has more recently taken up photography as a hobby.