It wasn't her victory lap, but rather the BBC that brought Van Vleuten to tears after her final World Championship

Annemiek van Vleuten has ridden her final road World Championships. The Dutch cyclist finished in eighth place on Sunday in Glasgow, after experiencing several instances of bad luck in the 154-kilometer-long race, which was eventually won by Lotte Kopecky. This led to both smiles and tears afterwards, as she realized that she would no longer be competing in orange.

Her finish in Glasgow was symbolic of her incredible career. There was no sign of self-pity or frustration, despite a puncture that took her out of a promising position in the last lap. "Accept, adapt and move on," she called it immediately after finishing, being praised by the Scottish crowd. After all the main press had interviewed her, she appeared before the Dutch press with equal strength and compassion.

"Story of my life," the powerful woman said with a big smile. "I'm now well-practiced at flipping a switch and just accepting when something happens that you can't do much about. In this case, it was a flat tire in the last round. Of course, you can get really grumpy about it, but I thought: all these people are cheering for me, so I made something like a victory lap. People realized it was my last World Championship, so that felt special to me."

"Things can never be normal, especially when I'm riding in orange. There's always something. I seem to attract those kinds of things, like a magnet," continued the Dutch cyclist who inspired so many people with her feats in the KNWU uniform over the past years. Tears didn't come during the race or her victory lap, but after the race, they did. "That was because of the BBC, who had beautiful words for me. That did make me shed a tear."

Van Vleuten can still laugh after flat tire: "Typical"

"Did I think it was tough race? I actually thought it beautiful," said the ever-positive Van Vleuten. "If it had been wet, I would not have been standing here happily. I had problems with my bike twice earlier in the race, so I was relieved that I was able to come back at all. If my race had ended there, I would have been disappointed. Now I was able to do everything for myself and the team, until that flat tire ruined it. That was typical of my career, but I'm glad that I could put all my energy into the race."

"If we could have still played the game with the two of us, it would have improved our chances. I even thought about winning because Kopecky would have had to react to both of us," said the woman who usually races for Movistar. "Beforehand, we already knew that she was the strongest and that we could beat her by exploiting our overall strength, but in the end, there was nothing to be done about it. She was really good."