UNEXPECTED LEAP. Mareille Meijering’s story is one of those bizarre ones which women’s cycling, still seeking for full professionalisation and support from its very roots, often offers. She had not been completely devoted to bike racing until very few months before joining the Movistar Team. Following a short-lived experienced with Zaaf, the Dutchwoman signed in April 2023, and for the following 20 months, a contract with Sebastián Unzué’s outfit, seeking to develop in the Blue ranks an all-rounding profile which many hope could see her rise to the top.

IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS. She had been competing for many years on a clubteam level -most notably with her beloved WV De Kannibaal- in the Netherlands, combining it with her studies and subsequent job in finance. She was a lecturer at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and the Utrecht University, where she’s currently allowed to take time off and return when she stops with cycling. In 2022, she still combined her teacher duties with UCI racing, her first-ever international license seeing her competing with Multum Accountants and broadening her international experience. She had already competed at the Simac Ladies Tour or the Czech Tour de Féminin, and in 2022, she took a top-20 result in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and started the Ronde van Vlaanderen or Gent-Wevelgem.

AMAZING PROGRESSION. The true breakthrough for Mareille only came to be when she had the opportunity to stop thinking about her day job and focus on the bike. At the 2023 UAE Tour, she surprised many when she entered the overall top-ten and took 12th atop Jebel Hafeet – ironically, ahead of her current team-mate Liane Lippert. A week before, she had finished 10th in Valencia, and later on, she would finish on the front groups in races as diverse as Nokere or the Trofeo Binda. Physical difficulties cut short her progression once in Blue, following some great debut races -12th in Navarra, 8th in Durango-, from which she wants to bounce back in 2024.