AT WARP SPEEDWIEBES

Some riders retire without ever having won a race. Others have to fight their whole career to get the taste of victory just a few times. But there are also riders who seem to have been born to win. After three seasons as a pro, Lorena Wiebes can count herself as one of the latter. She doesn’t turn 22 until 17 March, but already Wiebes has 23 wins under her belt. She only needed 98 race days to get there, to be precise. In other words: about every one in four days of racing, Wiebes was able to cross the finish line with her hands in the air in first place. That may be described as impressive.

It’s especially impressive for a rider who was still playing football up until age 15. Wiebes had, however, discovered the bike by then, but with mixed results. The real flame was yet to be lit. “I started cycling because of my father, who used to ride in triathlons,” Wiebes tells . “One day he came home with a BMX and I would ride it every Sunday morning around the course at the local cycling club. At first I really didn’t like cycling on the road. I was done with that for a while, after I had a bad fall during a