Daniek Hengeveld (22) hit rock bottom, but thanks to a 50-kilometer solo(!), she’s now at the top in Australia

Daniek Hengeveld has fabulously started 2025. The 22-year-old rider transferred from Picnic-PostNL to CERATIZIT-WNT this winter and immediately gave her new team a stage win in the first stage of the Tour Down Under. After a massive solo, she crossed the finish line 36 seconds ahead of the peloton. It goes without saying that she also took the leader's jersey in the process.

Hengeveld is not a name that probably rings a bell immediately, which is unsurprising. She is very talented, but after her victory in the Belgrade GP Woman Tour in 2021 for GT Krush Tunap (she was 18 years old), it took a while before we saw her riding at the front again. Her transfer to Team dsm-firmenich in 2023 contributed to that.

In the WorldTour, Hengeveld made the necessary progress and showed herself strong in short prologues/time trials, among other things. Not surprisingly, she managed to stay ahead of the peloton on Friday in the Dutch night. There is power in her, and she successfully completed a solo of about fifty kilometers. The first stage in the Tour Down Under for women was 101.9 kilometers long and led from Brighton to Aldinga.

Read more below the video

Hengeveld wins at Tour Down Under

Horrible crash in Tour of Britain affected Hengeveld a lot

The win sparked something in Hengeveld, which was no surprise. After all, in the summer of 2024, she crashed hard at the Tour of Britain, breaking her jaw, collarbone, and multiple ribs. She did not race for over three months and finally returned to the AG Tour de la Semois. "This is super unexpected, after a tough year in 2024," she told the organization in Australia after the race.

The recovery from her fractures was "much faster than expected," she wrote on her Instagram page in July. In a post just after the crash, she showed more emotion: "I'm still alive, although it doesn't feel like it. The last few days were the toughest of my life, full of mental and physical pain. Any personal situation did not focus me, so let this be an eye-opener: the mental state of a rider is as important as the physical."

Read more below the photo.

Hengeveld struggled to return to cycling

In 2023, Hengeveld was once in the winning position in Nokere Koerse. We didn't see her win before. "Winning my first WorldTour race for my new team is incredible. I will try to defend the leader's jersey on Willunga Hill tomorrow. I've never been a typical climber, but we will try as a team and otherwise have good climbers with us."

It was also her teammates who helped Hengeveld pull off the trick. With Canadian Sarah van Dam, they finished fourth in a sprinting peloton, behind Ally Wollaston (FDJ-SUEZ) and Kathrin Schweinberger (Human Powered Health). However, Hengeveld still did it mostly by himself. "I finally raced like I was 18," she cheered. "It was hard to see if I still loved cycling and what riding with a team that believed in me was like. It's nice. It's a good feeling."

Results stage 1 Tour Down Under - Elite women 2025

Read also

Visma | Lease a Bike also discusses tricky topic: "That cost Red Bull millions, for example"

New Pogačar domestique has one year to prove himself: "I want to show the whole world that I deserve this spot"

Finally good news for INEOS Grenadiers, British formation likely to close deal with new sponsor

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get every week the latest news about CYCLING in your inbox!

Subscribe