I Am Marianne Vos

The child's bike, a Mercier, leans against the wall, its fork and front wheel missing, its steel frame tinted with rust. The lime-green paint is faded and scratched from days at the races, training rides in the rain. The bar is wrapped in bright green tape, and the toe clips no longer hold straps. This is the first road bike Marianne Vos ever had.

She was five when she received it, eight when she rode it in her first race. The bike was too big then, but she was impatient. Her father, Henk, a retired carpenter, attached the saddle directly to the top tube, and a band of rust still marks the spot where he placed the clamp. The bike sits in a shed behind Vos's house that is crammed floor to ceiling with trophies and prizes Henk carefully arranges each time she brings another one home.

The cycling superstar is small-boned and long-legged, with the lithe lines of a ballerina. On the day we meet, she's armored against the Dutch November in a thick wool coat, a bright-orange silk scarf, skinny jeans, and tan, fleece-lined boots. A few specks of mascara dot the tops of her cheekbones. Thick brown hair curls slightly and floats cloud-like around her face.

This is not the Marianne Vos most are familiar with, the one with arms thrown high, face hidden behind sunglasses as she storms across the line. At age 27, she has conquered just about every major women's race, from the cobbled Tour of Flanders to the mountainous Giro d'ltalia Femminile (now the Giro Rosa). She has 12 elite world titles and two Olympic gold medals. In 2013, she won 40 races—by comparison, sprinter Mark Cavendish won 21—and her career total as a professional already stands at more than 300.

She seems to glide between disciplines with ease, and has won world titles in cyclocross, road, and track. Her world and national championship medals overflow from a wooden tea chest she keeps in the house. Few cyclists in history have achieved anything close to this level of success. Eddy Merckx is one. Nicknamed the Cannibal for his voracious appetite for victory, he won 525 races by his own count, including 10 Grand Tours and four road world championships.

Vos lives with her parents and older brother Anton, a photographer, in Meeuwen, a small village in the middle of Holland's farm country. A white windmill stands at the crossroads, visible from a long way in every direction. Tidy two-story brick houses, their windows traced in white or blue wood, line quiet streets. Brightly colored children's artwork hangs in the windows of the local school. Tolling church bells count the passing hours.

During the three days I visit her there last fall, we spend a lot of time in the car as I accompany her to a meeting with her agent, a magazine launch party, and back again to her family's house. She drives fast and threads her silver BMW through traffic as smoothly as she follows wheels in a bunch sprint. Rain drips down the car windows and half obscures the infinite farmland as it streaks by. Wind rushes unhindered across the flat terrain, trees bend, the air smells like sheep.

The house Vos bought for her family looks much the same as its neighbors. Inside, cycling magazines sit unevenly stacked at the end of the couch that dominates the main room. A black-and-white cat, curled in the chair closest to the television, is named Sjekkie, Dutch for hand-rolled cigarettes, or shaggies. A table draped in white linen is set for four, with a small bouquet of flowers at the center.

Vos's mother, Connie, a former secretary, rolls shaggies and smokes them in the kitchen while we talk. The scent of tobacco clings to her as she moves around the house. She cooks for the family: beef and gravy, red cabbage spiced with cinnamon, and potatoes for dinner; potato pancakes with jelly for lunch. The four of them sit down together when they're all at home—less often these days—and share a moment of silence before and after every meal.

Many of Vos's neighbors follow strict religious edicts. She's okay with racing on Sunday, but she also reads the Bible regularly and cites the goal to "Live peaceably with all" as the beating heart of her faith. When she was younger she wanted to be a doctor, but her cycling career ended that ambition. She likes to read, but rarely has time. She is philosophical about the tradeoffs of success and is eager to tell her story. She wants to be understood, to share the person behind the sunglasses, the shelves of trophies, and the lengthy list of palmares.

Vos brings a laser focus to everything she does. (Francesco Ridolfi)

BICYCLING: When you began riding, what was it about the bike that appealed to you most? MARIANNE VOS: The freedom. You can go when you want to go and do the the way you want to do it, where you want to do it. And the different views, it's just great to go out and, well, here you see the flat countryside. And in Italy, you see nice little cozy villages or beautiful mountains.


B: I get the sense you like being around people and having things to do. MV: Yeah. I'm always filling my agenda. I plan all the different stuff that I'm busy with. My best friend calls it "Marianne Planning." I try to fit 30 hours in 24, but it doesn't work. I tried it, but still every day stops again at 24! I want to do everything. Let's make an extra day or something in a month and I can do more. During the season, I have to plan my rest otherwise I don't rest.


B: You live in a town with three churches. Do you consider yourself religious? MV: We're always making jokes about this, because we live in the Bible Belt of Holland. I try to live as a good Christian. But sometimes I find it sad to see that people are reading the Bible and they take it so strict. I have the feeling that that's not how it should be. It's not about not watching television or not doing sports on Sunday or not wearing jeans.

I've been to Bhutan, and I wondered why they pray to such a fat guy all the time? But the way they are living, they just live day by day with the feeling of sharing everything, and taking care of every living thing on earth. Not about materials, not about individuals, it's all about just living and being happy at that moment.


I think it's cheating when you need music for training. If I can't do my training without music, I'm not in a good way.
It can only be you. Always singing on the climb. Please do it on the descent, and not on the climb.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I'm singing.
B: Did you expect when you started racing that your career would be so successful? MV: No. I didn't really think about it. I couldn't imagine it would end up like this. When I was a junior, my goal was to do this full-time and travel and race all over the world. But when I started, women's cycling was not such a big sport, there weren't many female professionals back then, so I couldn't imagine life as a professional.

2011 UCI Track Worlds (Vincent Jannick/AFP/Getty Images)

travel the world and race
B: Are you surprised when you hear the call-ups at races and they list all your results? MV: That's like the trophies, I never look at them and think, I never look back on all my list of honors to say, I know that it's pretty big. But I never think about it, because I'm always having fun on the bike and focusing on the next goal. But when they announce all the wins, it's also like,
B: Do you ever worry that you dominate women's cycling too much and that people might become bored by you or by the sport? MV: It can be boring. I ask myself the same question: And I don't want that. But I also don't want to lose races because it's getting boring for the spectators. I don't want to harm women's cycling because of my winning, but I don't want to do things half. I don't want to say,
I feel the contradiction, because I want to help women's cycling grow. But when you look at results from the last years, you think the level is low because you have the same winner over and over again, and maybe I should win less to make it more interesting. But I want to show that it is interesting even when I win. It's not Marianne wins again. It was a hard fight!

This is a circuit that suits me, I feel good, I did everything well, the team is good, I can win here.

That's also a thing: Am I able to go through that pain I'm going to need to win? And sometimes that's a bit scary. In La Flèche Wallonne, I know that the Mur de Huy suits me. I know that it's going to hurt like hell. But I know I can do it really well. I know I'm going to be in pain for a few minutes, I have to talk to myself:
I have natural-born talent to win La Flèche Wallonne. My muscles, my body is made to ride up a steep climb. But I have to work really hard to go up a mountain longer than 5km or to do a longer time trial than 5km. That needs a lot of effort. I want to show the world that I am not just gift and talent— That's the thing, that's why I wanted to win the Giro, to do something different. I wanted that challenge.

B: Right, it looks like women's cycling is the Marianne Vos show. But you didn't win the Giro last year. MV: I really didn't like not to win. But Mara Abbott is a top athlete, and it showed that the level is really high. That's the level of women's cycling. If I am 2 or 3 percent less, I am nowhere. I didn't even get second or third. Sixth? Seventh? I don't know.

B: And you had one really bad day. MV: I blew up. I tried to hang on too long. I just blew up. I couldn't go anymore. I was just parked. Then one passed, then a second. And it's a long way up. Megan Guarnier passed me, and said, Come on.
Just go on.
No, I'll take you to the top.
Okay, okay, hang on, keep the wheels. Then, Slow down, slow down, slow down.

Okay. Fast, now slow down, slow down.
Bas Czerwinski/Getty Images)


And we went up the climb like this. I was happy Megan stayed with me, otherwise I don't know if I would have gotten there. I lost five minutes, and I needed 10 minutes to lie down in the grass and get some breath again.
win the GiroTomorrow, well, I will try. Of course, I'm going to try. It's five minutes and I don't care. I'm going to attack from the beginning and see how far I can get.
B: How do you talk yourself into continuing when you blow up so badly? MV: Never give up. I've never stepped out of a race, and I want to keep it that way—


B: Does it give you more insight into other riders when you experience things like that? MV: Yes. I mean last year, when I got dropped at the Emakumeen Bira [the stage race in the Basque Country] from a bunch of 70 riders, I was constantly in the cars and coming back, between the cars and in a group. It was more the survival mind-set than winning a race. That doesn't happen for me often. For some, that's the normal way of racing, just getting there. When you're in the back, you have to give everything, because otherwise you are really dropped. You have to keep on pushing. I was there with riders; we all just wanted to come back. It's actually really great.

Now come on, it hurts too much.Ah, but it's worth it.It hurts too much!

Your legs burn and you have the feeling that your lungs explode. But after five or 10 minutes, it's okay again, and then you wonder how can it be that you had the energy left to recover?

B: You are frequently compared with Eddy Merckx. What do you think of that? MV: It's strange, because then they call me the Cannibal. Or in Italy, it's I can't really get that people see me like him. Because I see him as the big Eddy Merckx and he is the best. It's like, I'm just a girl. I'm just me. I'm just doing what I like most. Of course, I win some races, but I'm not so special.

B: Have you met him? Did you talk to him about it? MV: Yes, but it was a few years ago and I was not then compared to him. It was more like, nice to meet you Mr. Merckx, it's a great honor.

Of course, I know about his character, but it would be nice to have a conversation and try to compare us for real. What makes us dominant?

B: You grew up a cycling fan, and you still have your autograph book and the team water bottles you collected from the races. Were you a fan of any particular riders? MV: Every rider was big to me. It didn't matter if he won or if he was the last one. Wow, he rode the ! You can race all these mountains in three weeks and do all these miles! All the riders were great for me.
maybe this time.

B: Did you wish you could race the Tour? MV: No, because I knew there was not a way. When I was a little girl, I watched the Tour de France and I wanted that but you know it will never happen because they don't let women race. I would like to see a future where little girls can dream of that yellow jersey and not be told no.

MV: For me, it's not about equality, but to have the platform to show the people who want to watch women's cycling. The media's already there. It's the biggest event. It's a celebration of cycling. It should not only be men who celebrate cycling, but also women. And with the history of the Tour de France, that can have big value for women's cycling.

2013 Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Bas Czerwinski/Getty Images)

B: Before the 2012 London Olympics, you lost so much weight it hurt your performance. What was in your head at that time? MV: I've been asking myself what was in my head while I was doing that. I knew the course was not mountainous, so what the hell was I thinking? I did it not to lose weight, but to win the Giro. That winter, I started to train really hard and work on nutrition. I spent more energy than I put in. And it worked. I lost some weight and it felt good. It was not that I wasn't eating. I was eating three times a day, really good portions. Only I was also training five or six hours a day, really hard. So I needed more.

B: How do you feel about it now? MV: I feel ashamed that I was the wrong example for my teammates and everyone else in the bunch. That example, I don't ever want to give again. I was only busy with one result, one stupid gold medal, not with the people around me and not with having fun on the bike. I feel quite stupid about it.


I can't imagine that you do it for the win itself. Because you can't possibly be happy with something you don't deserve, that you have from the dope. It's not your achievement, so you can't be really satisfied with it. I think it's more like, It's all about others. It's about money and expectation from others to fit in.

B: In your own career, how have you made your decisions about doping? MV: I never really had this question. Honestly. I came from juniors into the elite category. In the second race, I was already racing for the victory.

Of course, I can say, really proud, But I've never been in their position. I'm happy I didn't have to make that choice, because I like cycling. I don't want to step out of cycling because everybody dopes. I don't know what I should have done in that position. It would have been really difficult for me.


B: How often would you say you are tested out of competition? MV: Three or four times a year. The total is about 50 a year. Out-of-competition controls are more important than in competition. Because, you're stupid if you win a race and you know you doped; you have to pee, and of course, you will get caught. Out of competition, racers have to fill in our whereabouts so they can test us—but if you're cheating you can be lucky and they don't come. At this point, that percentage can be quite high that you're lucky. And that shouldn't be.


If you ask a pro man rider, they really want to make money. They'll talk about their contracts and the money they earn. And women cyclists, they say,

Vos at home outside her garage, adjacent to the trophy shed. (Francesco Ridolfi)

training
B: What does cycling free you from? MV: I was kind of this shy schoolgirl. I found in the bike a way to excel and to get recognized. That meant something to me, because then I was someone. I was not only that shy girl without name. I found out that was important—to do something I was really good at.


B: You have a lot of obligations. MV: I don't want to see it as obligations, because then it's work. I just want to have fun. That's also in training. I want fun in my training, not just to do it because I need to. So I don't like to go up the same hill, up and down all the time. I like to do my efforts on a climb, but then I like to do a lap. So I search on Google Maps for a nice lap. I don't want to have to turn back and go again and again and again. I want to do something different.


For me, that doesn't make sense. It's more about love and feeling and being a good person than how to act and what clothes to wear and what programs to watch. I think I see religion in a different way than some people here.

B: Do you like to train with music? MV: I don't like it too much. You're not really into the normal sound of riding your bike and the birds and the trees and the wind. You should listen to that sometimes, too.

I sing in the bunch. I can imagine that's pretty annoying. The other riders don't like it. I pass other riders or a teammate, and it's like,
It just starts happening. I notice when the others start looking around. Sometimes I'm bored and I start singing. Mostly it's just to keep the focus or concentration.

2013 Giro Rosa (CJ Farquharson/Getty Images)


B: You keep your Olympic gold medals locked in a safe. Do you like to look at your trophies?MV: No, no. Because it's not about the trophies, it's about the road, how I got to that. It's a fantastic feeling when you cross the line. There's nothing compared to that feeling. But it's not about the medals or the world championships. It's about the life and how great it is to be able to everywhere and to be with the fantastic team and to do every day what you like most. There's more to my life than being Olympic champion. Because the next day, you're still Olympic champion, but it's also just another normal day.

What a great career I have.Oh, this is fantastic.Hmm, wow.

If everyone expects you to win, and you win over and over again, do you get the Lance Armstrong effect?Go for it 98 percent because it's more interesting for women's cycling.

B: Evie Stevens has said that your dominance is such that when the women are at the starting line, you know you're going to win. Are there times when you don't feel like that? MV: Of course. All the time, way more often than the others think. I'm not so confident about my shape at some point. I have doubts. What Evie thinks—that happens maybe one or two times a year, when I think,
I think doubt helps motivate me. It sometimes happens when I didn't do everything right. Then I have doubts. I'm always searching for perfection and you're never going to find perfection in your racing and preparation.
You made the preparation. Is it worth it that you go through that pain, and then you win at the top, and it's done and it's over? The pain will be away after a few minutes. Then you can be happy.
Ah, Marianne she's so gifted, easy she'll win—so people will say, Wow, she worked hard for that.
I'm gifted, and I'm really thankful that I'm blessed with these gifts and talents. But I have to work really hard to get the best out of these talents and to make the best of this. That's also why I want more coverage for women's cycling. I want to show that I can win a lot, but not every time, and it's not that easy.


Mara Abbott was outstanding. She's the best climber in the world. The last few years when I won the Giro [in 2011 and 2012], she was not in top shape. I was not as good this year, so I was trying to get an advantage before the mountaintop finishes because I knew I was going to be dropped on the climb. But it was not enough.


I said,
And she said,
I had to say,
Come on!

2014 UCI Cyclocross Worlds (

2013 UCI Road Worlds (Yorick Jansens/Getty Images)

I knew I wouldn't , but I thought, And that's what I liked about this Giro. I won three fantastic stages. I won the points jersey, and we did a great job in the team, and I suffered a lot and I fought for every second and every point. I have good memories of this Giro even though I didn't win.


B: Really? You've never abandoned a race? MV: I've done it after a stage when I got ill. I've not stopped during. And I want to keep it like that. If I'm at a point where I really don't feel good and I got dropped, is there any use to go on? Yes. Because if I stop in this race, the next race it will be easier to stop again. Keep on going, there's people with way more problems with different things than riding a bike and having to go to the finish.


B: Are you negotiating with yourself when you're on the bike? Do you talk to your legs?MV: No, I talk to the thing. I have two: the positive one and the negative one. And the negative one says, And the other one says, I don't talk to my legs. But to the man that says,
I think I'm suffering, but for sure the others are also. You don't know how much pain they're in compared to me. And can you go through the pain? I'm always asking myself these questions. You never ride your bike until you're dead; you stop. Somewhere, you stop. But where do you stop? And, of course you can push yourself really far, but at one point, you will stop before you fall off your bike dead. But how far can you go?

I try especially in the sprints or time trials or uphill finish to go until I can't do anything anymore, or until the line and that's it. I know after the line I don't need energy anymore. So let's make the best of it and be dead on the finish line. But I don't really want to go dead on the finish line.

La Cannibale.
But of course, it's a great honor to be compared with Eddy Merckx. He's the greatest cyclist ever.


It would be nice to have a conversation with him about how he sees me and how I see his career. Just to talk about life in cycling and what it brought for him, what he was doing, and how he kept motivated during these races and how he wanted to be the best all the time.

First I was the next Leontien van Moorsel [the Dutch cyclist who competed from 1990 to 2004 and holds world and Olympic titles on the road and track], and that was already pretty big for me. But now it's turning into Eddy Merckx and this is even more fantastic, because now women's cycling is compared with men's and it's not considered the lesser cycling.

Tour de France
Later I liked Jan Ullrich. Because he was, with the German precision, just riding. Keep pushing, never give up. You see him hurt, but no real thinking—just go. I liked the human thing. Ullrich was always fat and not good in the winter and he had to get training. And you hoped that, because he was the underdog, Well,
Lance Armstrong had the perfect precision with his preparation—and it was not fun. It was too precise. I liked the not-perfect thing of Ullrich.


B: You were one of the sponsors last year (with Chrissie Wellington, Emma Pooley, and Kathryn Bertine) of a petition for a women's Tour de France. As a result, the organizers launched La Course by Le Tour de France, a 13-lap circuit race in Paris that will finish on the Champs-Elysees before the men on the final day of the Tour. Is this a good first step to equality?

But should we do stages from 250km? I don't think so. The top level is ready. But the depth of the field, maybe not, and then it's going to be less interesting. I don't want to feel like they should allow us to do the Tour de France. It's not a charity thing. We have to add value to the race.

2012 Olympic Road Race (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)


Then I won the Giro. I was still at a good weight. But I lost even more. During a season, you're doing a lot of racing and it's hard to gain weight. At one point, my body was not able to recover. I had no fat at all. But I was scared to change the perfect plan.


B: You were a fan of the Tour at a time when, it's now clear, many riders were doping. Why do you think riders dope?MV: To secure their future. It's actually a strange way of thinking—you dope to secure your future with something that can ruin your career. But I think that's the most important thing. To keep the contract, to keep the salary.
It's my contract, it's my team that wants this from me.
I can't imagine that you're satisfied with a win if it's on dope. But I can imagine that you want to win and want to do everything for that. Everything in my life as an athlete, 24/7, I do for cycling. For me, dope is not a part of that. It's not fair play. You're cheating, and I can't imagine being happy with the result if you're not doing it in an honest way. Still, some people will do it to win, for recognition. They want to be a name. They want to achieve something.


I was really lucky with that and I never had to make a choice like this. Nobody ever even asked me. There was no point. I was already winning.
I've never used doping and I won't. These guys in the '90s, they're all bad guys.
B: You've been outspoken in favor of more testing in women's cycling. MV: Yes, it shouldn't be a question. The barriers have to be so high that you don't think about it because you will get caught—especially when women's cycling is growing at this moment. It's more professional, more money is involved. If you continue, if you want a contract, the pressure is on. So there might be riders who get the question.


B: In terms of women's cycling and doping, the sport is growing and— MV: We didn't have the problems that the men's sport had because our sport was smaller. And because there wasn't that much money involved. Also, I think because women race from passion and less from money. That can be a point. There's research to do. I have the feeling that women don't race for money. They really want to challenge themselves and they want to go for it.
I'm really happy that I can live my life like this and be able to travel the world with this fantastic team and do the races I want to do. To follow this dream.
Now You KnowWe catch up with the Olympic and world champion after our July issue photo shoot to find out where the racer stands on some of the great philosophical debates of our time.

(Harry Engels/Getty Images, Central Press/Getty Images)