Ellen van Dijk
Eleonora Maria "Ellen" van Dijk is a Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam. Besides road cycling she was also a track cyclist until 2012. Van Dijk is known as a time trial specialist and is five times world champion. She won her first world title on the track in the scratch race in 2008. She became Road World Champion in 2012, 2013 and 2016 with her respective trade teams in the team time trial and in 2013 also in the individual time trial. In 2015, she won the time trial at the first European Games and the silver medal in the team time trial at the world championships.
Van Dijk started as a speed skater and as part of her skating training she undertook cycling as part of cross-training in summer. She excelled at both, competing nationally at junior level. She gave up speed skating and switched to cycling full-time after winning the national cycling championship for the fifth time in 2007. Along with her world title successes, Van Dijk has also twice been European track champion, three times European time trial champion and has won six World Cup races. In 2012, she competed in three disciplines at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where she helped Marianne Vos win the gold medal in the road race, finished eighth in the time trial and sixth in the team pursuit.
Personal life
Ellen van Dijk grew up in Harmelen, Utrecht together with her two older brothers along with her mother and father. Besides speed skating and cycling, she also played volleyball and performed gymnastics when she was a child. Van Dijk left Harmelen for her study to Amsterdam in 2006, where she still lives. During the first years in Amsterdam she shared her apartment with Mariëlle Kerste, her best friend and also a Dutch cyclist. Kerste moved out a few years later and Van Dijk has since shared an apartment with the Dutch cyclist Hannah Walter. In December 2014 Van Dijk moved to Woerden.Van Dijk graduated from Minkema College, Woerden, in 2005 and earned a bachelor's degree in Human Movement Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2011. After the Olympics she started her master's degree, but didn't have time to complete it.
Sport career
Speed skating
Van Dijk started her career as a speed skater. As a very young child, she had performed in natural ice skating tours and, at the age of eight, she became a member of a local speed skating club. During the winter months, Van Dijk trained almost every day at the local speed skating rink in Utrecht. She did this from when she was aged twelve until she was twenty years old. Van Dijk competed five times in the junior Dutch Allround Championships; she finished in tenth place on two occasions in the all-around competition and in fourth place in the 3000m in 2005. She also rode the track record at the 5000 metres.Early cycling years
When she was ten years old, Van Dijk started, together with her two brothers and Mariëlle Kerste, cross-training on a bike during the summer and she began competing in regional races. Because Van Dijk performed well, she started competing in national races at the age of 15 in 2002. In the same year, in her first national championship, she finished in fourth place. The following year, she won the Dutch national road championship in the novice category. In 2004, Van Dijk won two more national titles, this time as a junior, in the road race and in the road individual time trial. In the latter, she beat Marianne Vos, though Vos would avenge her defeat in Road World Championships in Verona, Italy. Vos won the junior road race world title, with Van Dijk finishing third. In 2005, Van Dijk again won the Dutch national junior title in the individual time trial but finished second in the road race, again behind Vos. In 2007, when Van Dijk was considered for selection in regional speed skating, she had to choose between speed skating and cycling– ultimately, she chose cycling.Vrienden van het Platteland (2006–2008)
2006
Van Dijk achieved two stage victories in the Tour Féminin en Limousin and in the Giro della Toscana. In the middle of the season, Van Dijk suffered a clavicle fracture and as a result was hampered in the national championships. She finished 10th at the U-23 European Championships in Valkenburg and at the World University Cycling Championship, Van Dijk won the individual time trial and finished second in the road race. At the end of the season, Van Dijk was a reserve at the road world championships but she did not race. At the Dutch National Track Championships she won bronze in the individual pursuit.2007
Van Dijk won the first stage in the Tour of Chongming Island and finished second in the general classification. At the national time trial championships she became for the first time Dutch champion in the elite category. In the time trial at the European Championships she finished fifth. Due to her good results in the time trials she was chosen to represent the Netherlands in the time trial at the Road World Championships in Stuttgart where she finished 17th. Due to her good results she became sportswomen of the year of Woerden. Because Van Dijk had more spare time in the winter after quitting speed skating, she was invited to join the Dutch national track cycling team. At the national track championships she became Dutch champion in the individual pursuit, ahead of Marianne Vos and Kirsten Wild, and finished fourth in the scratch race and points race.2008
Due to her good results at the national track cycling championships, Van Dijk was chosen to ride the individual pursuit in the remaining two 2007–2008 track cycling World Cups, where she could, via the UCI World Ranking system, potentially earn qualification for the 2008 Olympic Games. She finished in Los Angeles and Copenhagen in fifth and fourth places respectively. After finishing fifth in the individual pursuit at the World Track Championships in Manchester, Van Dijk missed out on qualification for the Olympic Games; she finished 12th in the UCI World Rankings and only the first eleven riders qualified. The day after she took revenge by winning her first major senior title, the scratch race at the 2008 World Cycling Championships. With eight laps to go she attacked and rode solo to the finish line. Later that year, she also became European Track Championships in the scratch as well as in the points race. She rode to the silver medal in the omnium and the individual pursuit events.Despite not winning a medal at the Dutch time trial championships she won the time trial at the European Championships. She was not selected to ride the time trial at the Summer Olympics, because the course would be too heavy for her.
Team Columbia–High Road Women (2009–2011)
2009
On the track, Van Dijk followed other competitors by riding with a heavier gear. The change seemed to bear fruit when, in February at the Track Cycling World Cup in Copenhagen, she won her first two World Cup victories in the individual pursuit and points race and won a silver medal in the team pursuit. A month later at the Track Cycling World Championships in Pruszków, Poland, she failed to live up to her billing as world champion and her performances were not as good as those than in Copenhagen in February and in Manchester the year before. Indeed, Van Dijk did not reach the podium in any event. In spite of her disappointing performance in Pruszków, Van Dijk was approached by, and soon agreed to join, the professional road cycling team. Although the name of the team has changed on a number of occasions since, Van Dijk rode for this team until 2013. The road season did not start well as Van Dijk suffered a concussion in a crash during the Ronde van Gelderland in April and she was unable to ride for nearly six weeks. Almost immediately after having recovered from her injury, she defended successfully her European time trial title at the European Road Championships in July. After riding the time trial at the Road World Championships, Van Dijk took some rest in preparation for the Track Cycling World Cups. She skipped the National track championships, which were held two weeks after the World Championships.2010
Van Dijk did not reach the finals at the Track Cycling World Championships in Melbourne, finishing fifth in both the individual pursuit and the team pursuit events. She also participated in the points race as a late replacement and finished eighth. Van Dijk won the time trial on the road in the Holland Ladies Tour en route to finishing third in the final general classification standings. She won the Sparkassen Giro and finished second in the Open de Suède Vårgårda World Cup race in Sweden. At the Dutch Track Championships, Van Dijk won five medals including gold in the individual pursuit.2011
Van Dijk cycled in the team pursuit to a national team time trial record at the Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester. A month later however she rode with the team three seconds slower at the Track Cycling World Championships and finished in 5th place; the same position in which Van Dijk finished in the individual pursuit.Van Dijk started the road cycling season by winning all three classifications in the Ladies Tour of Qatar, including winning the second stage. Van Dijk dedicated her stage and overall win to teammate Carla Swart, who died whilst training after being hit by a truck a few weeks earlier. The prize money she earned in Qatar was sent to her family. After riding stage races in the Netherlands, China and Spain she finished second at the Dutch time trial championships in Veendam and qualified for the World Championships later the year. A month later, in Sweden, she rode two World Cup races, winning the Open de Suède Vårgårda TTT and finishing second in the Open de Suède Vårgårda. As preparation for the World Championships she won the time trial at the Holland Ladies Tour. At the World Championships in Copenhagen she finished 6th in the time trial and was the best Dutch rider. Returning to the track, Van Dijk won the Track Cycling World Cup in Astana in a new national record, which was her fourth World Cup victory. At the end of the year she successfully defended her Dutch individual pursuit title at the Dutch National Track Championships and also became national champion in the madison.