Isabelle gaat vooral genieten

 

Isabelle Söderberg (SWE)
Born May 28, 1989
Lives in Uppsala (Swe)

Isabelle is lucky that her country doesn't have a huge pool of female cylists. And because she is considered a talent, it is quite logical that she gets a chance on the highest stage of women's cycling: the Olympic road race. She was notified quite late that she can ride with team captain and medal contender Emma Johansson.

She will have one job on the course with the tough Box Hill: work for Johansson. "That is no problem because I am just very happy to be part of the Olympics," she said when she heard of her selection.

Isabelle hasn't won any races yet so here is a short profile of her:

Better than IKEA? At least comparable to the big furniture store is Isabelle Söderberg, a fresh-faced blonde in the AA Drink/Leontien.nl team kit. And if the signs don't lie she is bound to grow much further very soon. Well, that's the plan. Isabelle is her name. From Sweden with love.

Easy going is the best way to describe young (22) Isabelle. She'd barely spent 24 hours with the team in the Van der Valk Hotel for a team meeting in November 2011 and she'd already lost herself in heavenly fits of laughter. She had so much fun taking part in the initiation program DS Danny Stam had compiled. She and her game partner Lucinda Brand couldn't stop laughing all night. At the end of the day she concluded that her foreign adventure had already turned into a success. Typical Swedish adaptation?
“I really want to get better and was really ready to head into a new direction with my cycling career," Isabelle Söderberg says.

She is more than convinced of her own capabilities as a rider. From the moment she discovered cycling as an 11-year old with her brother she has been amongst the best of her generation. However, such a thing is not very difficult to achieve in her home country Sweden where football, athletics, tennis, ice hockey, alpine and cross country skiing are far more popular than cycling. There are top riders like Emma Johansson but the pool of Swedish cyclists is not very big. "When we ride our national championships there are 40 women at the start, at most. After one lap at full speed, only ten remain," Söderberg illustrates the situation. 

Isabelle thinks she can follow Kirsten Wild as a sprinter."I know I can be fast in a bunch sprint even though I haven't won yet. That was caused, however, by the fact that I had to do too much work before the sprint myself. I hope to show that I can be useful if I get to chance to save some energy until the final. The same thing applies to the Spring Classics that should fit me. In the Ronde van Drenthe and the Waalse Pijl I managed to stay at the front for a long time but at the end all the energy I used earlier in the race turned out to be too much. Anyway, if everyone in the team shows that winner's mentality this year we'll end up having a lot of fun together which is equally important to gain good results."  

Olympic program
July 29, from 1pm: road race  

   

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