Emma Johansson finished in 13^th place at the Ronde van Vlaandered on Sunday. It’s a far cry from her usual standard but it may just be her most impressive result in Oudenaarde. Her story is one of tenacity and toughness. Her story is one of a husband who is a partner in every sense of the word and community that has embraced Emma as one of their own – and it’s a story she tells you here.

 

CRASH: FROM DEVASTATION TO HOPE

This story starts when I crashed and realized that my collarbone was broken. My tears at the finish had nothing to do with physical pain. I actually didn’t have much. I was just devastated because I realized there wasn’t going to be a Ronde for me.

I don’t know anyone who has come back to racing less than three weeks after surgery. I wasn’t even hoping to race in those first moments. It was normal for me to get back on the bike early. That’s who I am. I don’t like just lying around.

“When I was able to get back on the road after only a week, that’s when I started to get some hope.” 

It wasn’t just that I could ride outside but that I could ride outside relatively pain-free. I had no pain in the collarbone. It was just the back and the muscles around the collarbone that needed some extra love and attention.

FORMALIZING A PLAN

When I was outside on the road just one week after surgery, that’s when I started to think about the Ronde. That’s when Martin and I started to talk about it seriously. “Do you think it’s possible?” I asked him.  He told me he did. We put up the goal of racing the Ronde. We knew it might not happen, but that’s what we would work towards.

We made a training schedule of what I was going to do, and I stuck to it. I rode over the cobbles for the first time the Monday before the race – six days out. It was fine but I didn’t feel awesome. I told Martin: “If the race is tomorrow, I wouldn’t do it.” And I wouldn’t have. My goal wasn’t only to start the race. I wanted to start knowing I had a chance to contend.

“Knowing it was six days away, I never gave up. I never give up.”

By Wednesday, I felt a lot better. That was my final fitness test. I still needed to have permission from the doctor. That came on Friday – two days before the race.

The thing when you have the collarbone operated on that most people don’t understand is that post-operation, it’s less about the collarbone and more about everything else. The collarbone is plated. It’s stiffer than any other bone in your body. The question is: How is everything around the collarbone healing after the surgery and the crash? The fact that I could sleep with my arm under the pillow and practically had full range of motion said that I was healing pretty well.

THE GREEN LIGHT

 

When my doctor gave me the green light to race, I was so happy. It would have been a lot better for me if we had a different race last weekend and the Ronde van Vlaanderen coming up this weeked to give me a little more time, but the Ronde was it. It was the first race I could do after the surgery, and I knew I had to race it.

“I live and breathe the Ronde from the moment I come to Belgium in February until race day. Everything I do is about the Ronde. It’s always in the back of my head.”

Living in Zingem, the race goes through my town. There’s the special moment when we ride down my street in front of my friends and fans, and I don’t even know how to describe what it all feels like to you. There are other races that I focus on, of course, but this is the race of the spring for me. The frustration with the idea that I might not be able to stand on the start line and ride through Zingem, that I might not ride up the Kwaremont and feel the atmosphere, that I might miss out on the final with the Paterberg, that I might not meet up with my friends and fans after the race – I didn’t want to do that.

That’s what motivated me. That’s why I worked so hard. I knew if I wasn’t racing, I couldn’t be in Oudennarde on race day. It would have been too painful. That was my motivation. I wasn’t ready to experience the Ronde from the sidelines. Not yet. So I did everything I could to make sure that wouldn’t have to happen.

I wasn’t surprised when the doctor said I could race. I already knew I could.

THE NEXT GOAL

The first thing was to be able to stand at the start, but I didn’t want to start unless I was sure I had something to do. I knew my form was good, but I didn’t know how good or not I would be. That was my only issue. I did a bit of race pace in my body to get the deeper and harder sessions in beforehand. Martin and I sat down and had a talk about it. We always have a talk about it. He’s amazing like that. He asked me what I thought and how I was feeling and what I thought was realistic in terms of a goal for the race.

“I told him that if I could be with the front group until the Kwaremont, I would be happy. Whatever happens from there, I could take step-by-step.”

Of course, I wanted to race up the front as if I was racing for the victory, but I knew I had to be realistic. I had a little bit of a goal to make it to the Kwarement. I told myself if I made it there, I would have done an awesome job. I told myself that from there, anything else would be more like a golden star in the book. I said this all – but I still knew what I wanted. I wanted to be in a position to challenge for the podium.

Before the start of the race, I had a man come up to me and ask me: “Are you going to win?” I have to admit, it made me sort of angry. My first reaction was: “Are you taking the piss?” and then “I just came back from a collarbone break. Give me some peace.” I had been standing there trying to feel as relaxed as possible, and the question sort of ruined that.

I know everyone likes a Cinderella story, but they’re just dreamers. Welcome to real life.

MY BELGAN FAMILY

My Belgian family is a group of neighbors, former neighbors from when I lived in Belgium full-time. We only live in Belgium part-time now, but we still have a lot of contact with all them. The thing on Heirweig street started with our friends Peter and Sharon. It was a small group and not too many decorations at first, but it’s grown bigger each year, and now it feels like the whole town of Zingem is involved. No one, not even a rider in the men’s peloton, has what I have when I ride down Herweig. It’s very special. I always get emotional when we ride down the street. Everyone standing on the road for me – it’s such a big thing.

“The Ronde is practically a national holiday in Belgium, and the way everyone comes out to support me and celebrate me, it’s a bit surreal.”

It would never happen in Sweden, and here I am, a Sweden in Belgium, and they embrace me as one of their own. I don’t have words for it.

It’s normal for my supporters to come see me at a race beforehand, and it’s no different for them at the Ronde. The main difference is that there are more people I don’t know – more people that want to say hello and wish me well and take a picture or get an autograph. Usually I will give one or two interviews before the race, but I think because I came back so fast there were more people that were interested and wanting to ask questions and talk to me.

From the start, the ones closest to me first go to Zingem and from there, they are standing everyone on the course. Martin organizes it and splits everyone up into groups to follow the race. They cover all the cobbles and all the hills with wheels and bottles. It’s very difficult for the team car to be there and support you if you have a problem, especially over the cobble sections where the race is all spread out.

If you have to wait for minutes and minutes for a new wheel, for example, that can be the difference between winning and losing the race. The peloton is so big, and there’s such a big difference in ability in the starters. It’s a huge thing that they’re all so willing to spend their day making sure my day and my teammates day is the best it can possibly be.

RACING THE RONDE

I made it to the Kwaremont. I was hurting on the hills like never before, so I knew it was going to be a tough one. I knew I would have to dig very, very deep to survive over the Kwaremont with the front group. I was the last one not to make the split.

“The fact that I was not that far away is nice in one way but quite painful in another. I’m used to racing in the final here. To suddenly see the front group ride away from me, to realize that I was coming up short, that I couldn’t do it. It hurt quite a lot.”

At first, I chased. Then I thought to myself: “I’m not going to do this again.” I’ve been chasing too much in my life.

I know the descent into Paterberg really well, and the group in front wasn’t too far away. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t have the information that the group had split into two. I made the decision to ride full all the way to the descent into Paterberg and ride full up Paterberg and reassess after that. It’s exactly what I did.

We were pretty close after the Paterberg. I could see three riders, including Jolien d’Hoore, in front of me. We never made it up there. My group was around eight riders just after the Paterberg, but no one was working hard but me. Everyone in my group had a teammate up there, and I understood that they didn’t want to ride. When the group behind us came back to us after the Paterberg, that’s when I knew my race was over.

THE FINAL THIRTEEN KILOMETRES

There are not many kilometres between the Paterberg and the finish line, but a surprising number of thoughts can go through your head during that distance.

I was thinking about how I crashed three weeks ago and was standing on the road and crying because the Ronde was gone. I was thinking about everything that went into my super fast comeback and how I stood on the start line when no one believed it was possible that I would do that. I thought about how these three weeks have felt like three months and a blink of the eye all at once. It seems like both forever ago and yesterday that I was in the hospital and the doctor was telling me the collarbone was broken. I thought about how my brother came to visit and I missed out on the World Cup in Italy and how when I was injured my life was a bit more normal – and how I liked that and hated that at the same time.

I thought about the training I was doing and how I tried my body out on the cobbles. I thought about going up and down the canal for three hours because I wasn’t allowed to go on the road. I thought about all the different things that I didn’t have in my schedule three weeks ago that I had to make time for if I wanted to race – all the treatments and the other things that I did to help my body heal.

CROSSING THE FINISH LINE

I didn’t tell many people about this before the race, but my grandmother, who had been sick, passed away one week earlier. It was emotional upheaval on top of emotional upheaval – and the week leading up to the Ronde was so intense for me in so many different ways. When I crossed the finish line, the first thing I thought about was my grandma and how much of who I am and what I do comes from my family.

And then – well, to be totally honest, then I was disappointed. I talked to my teammate Loes straight after the finish. She gave me a huge hug and told me I’m amazing. “What a ride!” she said. And I said: “Yes, but….” But I was so close. But I wanted more. But it’s the Ronde and I wish I had been better. “You need to remember that you might be a superwomen but you’re not a freaking superhero,” Loes told me.

When you finish a race, you’re still in it. You still have all the adrenalin. It’s easy to see what you didn’t do instead of what you did do.

By the time I met my friends and supporters, I had begun to change my tune – and the things they said to me helped me even more. There was a constant stream of congratulations and huge hugs and warm words. That’s when I started to feel what I had actually achieved and the disappointment dissipated.

Of course I always want more. If I wasn’t a person who wanted more, I wouldn’t have even been on the start line. I can look back now and see that 13^th place at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, one of the hardest and longest World Cups of the year, is a pretty good result considering I broke my collarbone there weeks before the race.

THE POST-RONDE CELEBRATION

It’s always special when the race is finished. Everyone comes together in the market in Oudenaarde to watch the final from the men’s race together. We do it every year. It’s the first moment that I can relax a little, and I’m really lucky that I can relax with this group.

When the men’s race is done, I head home to have a shower and we meet up again at the favorite restaurant in Oudenaarde. It’s an Italian place called Colosseo. Even though I don’t go there very often, they know me, and they remember my favorite pizza. I don’t even have to order. It sounds like I go there every week when I really only go there two or three times each season.

We have dinner with a group of around 20-25 people, depending on who is tired after being out too long the night before in their preparation for the Ronde. At dinner, I’m just one of the people around the table – just like everyone else. It’s good to feel normal.

From dinner in Oudenaarde, we head to the café in Zingem. This is where we meet up with some of the supporters who have been part of the decorations and standing on the street. They maybe weren’t able to come to Oudenaarde to watch the final, and they aren’t the closest ones that come to dinner, so this is where I can see them and thank them. “Bassie” is the local café where we have drink, and then, eventually, a lot of hours later it’s time for bed. Everyone is exhausted.

You meet the Ronde hangover the next day. It’s not a hangover as in you think about from too much drinking. It’s about breathing the Ronde van Vlaanderen for way too long. You wake up and feel an emptiness. Like a kid the day after Christmas.

It’s really something this whole Ronde thing. And while I’ve done my best to describe if for you, it’s not something I can adequately convey with my words. You have to experience it on your own…

…but even if you do, your experience won’t be my experience.

No matter how what result I have at the end of the day, I am so incredibly lucky to race the Ronde van Vlaanderen as Emma Johansson from Zingem riding over Herweig street.