The first half of Justine Ghekiere’s 2019 ProCyclingStats page looks like this: 73rd, 59th, DNF, DNF, DNF, DNF, 84th, DNF, OTL, DNF, 98th, 67th, DNF. In 13 race days, the Belgian made it to the end of just five. Fast forward to 2024 and it looks like this: first place in the mountains classification at the Tour de France Femmes, the Giro d’Italia Women and the Volta a Catalunya, first place in stage seven of the Tour to Le Grand-Bornand, plus third at the Belgian National Championships and seventh in the Olympic Games road race. It’s fair to say that Ghekiere has come a very, very long way in the last five years.
This rate of progression is impressive – how has Ghekiere gone from a rider who was talent-spotted after putting out big power numbers on Zwift to a Grand Tour stage winner? The key, she says, is simple. Training. A lot of it.
“I'm someone who can go really deep. I like to train a lot. I can handle it,” Ghekiere explains. “Sometimes they told me I was doing too much, but it works for me.”
The AG Insurance-Soudal rider is speaking a few days before her first race of the 2025 season at the Tour Down Under. She sits on the balcony of her hotel under the blazing hot heat in Adelaide and appears relaxed and happy, shaking her head while she answers my questions, as if even she can scarcely believe the journey that this sport has taken her on.
“There was a Zwift competition to do as many kilometres as you could in one week and I won it,” Ghekiere says, reflecting on where her rollercoaster ride to the top of the sport began. “They tried to disqualify me at first because on the last day I did 13 hours on the turbo trainer. They didn’t think it was right, but I sent them all the data. The prize was to do a performance test in a laboratory which I did, then people saw the results of that test and said I should start competing, that’s how I got my first contract.”
Ghekiere says she was able to compare the power numbers she produced in her test to current professionals and understood that she had some serious talent. People had always told her that she rode a bike well when she used to go out on mountain bikes recreationally with her father, but the test cemented that the Izegem-born rider deserved a chance to show herself against the best in the world. It was the Belgian continental team Bingoal Casino-Chevalmeire who took a chance on the girl with no experience but a lot of watts, and Ghekiere admits that her first season was a baptism of fire.
“It was really hard in my first season. I was saying to my trainer: ‘I’m pushing so much power, how is it possible I’m dropped or have a DNF?’ He told me the problem was my positioning and how to be in the race,” Ghekiere remembers. “Now my positioning is better and I can read the race more.”
The transformation for Ghekiere began when she found her calling in the mountains. When the road kicks up, the 28-year-old comes into her own. She finished that 2019 season which started with a string of race abandonments with two top-10 finishes in the Tour de l'Ardèche, a hilly French stage race.
“Ardeche was a really good race for me to end my first season on. I saw I was a good climber and got the results that helped me go one to another, bigger team,” Ghekiere says. “When I joined Plantur-Pura the staff and everything was better. I also did my first altitude camp and that helped me improve."
The following season, Ghekiere signed for AG Insurance-Soudal, the team she still rides for today. It’s the squad where she says she has found her home.
“It is really a family. It’s important for me to feel at home and it’s a Belgian team so I can speak my language. For me when my head is good, the results are also good,” Ghekiere says. “AG Insurance helped me trust myself again, because I’d lost that a little bit when I was with Plantur-Pura in my second year. For example, I was supposed to do my first Tour with them but one week before they pulled me out of the selection. It was a stupid choice from them which made me lose confidence. When I spoke to Natascha [Knaven, AG Insurance team founder], I had a good feeling again and it was nice that someone trusted me.”
If Ghekiere says that her best performances come with her being happy and content in her team, it was clear almost immediately that AG Insurance-Soudal was the right place for her. In the very first race she started with the team, the Belgian rider announced herself to the cycling world, winning the stage race Setmana Ciclista-Volta Comunitat Valenciana ahead of her teammate and experienced South African climber, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.
“I was really looking up to Ashleigh. I was a little bit intimidated by her because she’s such a big rider in the peloton, but she's really nice,” Ghekiere says. “She told me what to do and how I could improve. The good thing about being on this team is everyone is the same and everyone gets an opportunity. People can pick the goals they really want and the team treats everyone equally.”
The lessons that Ghekiere has learned from the likes of Moolman-Pasio haven’t just helped her be a perfect teammate on her trade team, but also while riding as part of the Belgian national team, alongside double-world champion Lotte Kopecky. The former physiotherapist has been imperative to both of her compatriot’s rainbow jersey wins, playing an important role in setting Kopecky up for victory.
‘It's definitely two highlights of my career, both World Championships with Kopecky. When you are riding for such a big star, it gives you goosebumps, you can do a little bit more,” Ghekiere states. “When you are in the race, it’s crazy because you know she can really win. If you can do something to help that, it’s also a win for you. When I see her riding in the rainbow jersey, I always think one stripe of it is for me. That’s really nice.”
Both of those Worlds races won by Kopecky were tough, attritional days of bike riding. Ghekiere comes into her own when things get especially difficult, constantly attacking and racing aggressively. When others begin to suffer, the Belgian woman starts to thrive. If we want to begin to understand the extent of Ghekiere’s mental strength, the Giro d’Italia Women last season is the perfect case in point. She crashed midway through the stage race and landed on her face, splitting her lip and taking a battering. Despite it all, she rode valiantly on, eventually securing the Queen of the Mountains jersey.
“Last year I didn’t have the best start to the season and they told me I wasn’t in the Tour de France selection. At that point, I thought my season was over, but I had to switch on again. I told myself: don’t let them forget you,” Ghekiere says. “I crashed in the Giro and I just thought ‘no, I can’t have this bad luck again’. I told myself I didn’t need my lip, I just needed my legs in the race. I just went full gas, it was a mental game in my head. The pain was awful and I was sad, but I just had to show the team what I was capable of.”
The call-up to the Tour came just three days before the race was due to begin after Moolman-Pasio opted not to start the race last year due to injury. Luckily, Ghekiere had been training hard to peak for the Olympics which took place just a few days before the Grand Départ in Rotterdam. AG Insurance-Soudal will be forever grateful they took their Belgian star to the race in the end.
“We had a plan to secure the polka dot jersey so I was getting in all the breakaways, especially on the penultimate mountain stage to Le Grand-Bornand. That day, we took the climb and me and my teammate got in the breakaway. When we had five minutes on the peloton, I was thinking this is good because I can just get the polka dot jersey – my team had given me a polka dot bike which was really motivating me,” Ghekiere smiles.
“I knew the peloton was getting closer but on the last climb I thought, let me just see how strong I am. My team told me I had two minutes so I just went for it. I was so dead at one moment I even hoped I’d get a flat tyre. The gap just wasn’t getting smaller so I knew I was pacing myself really well. Every time they came closer I was telling myself it was still possible, and I managed to win the stage.”
Winning on one of the most iconic climbs in cycling and beating the likes of Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma was undoubtedly the biggest moment in Ghekiere’s career. The Tour de France reaches more fans than any other race – something that the 28-year-old experienced first-hand when she won atop Le Grand-Bornand.
“It didn’t change me as a person but it changed my life a lot. Everyone recognized me in Belgium, and last week I was invited to a big TV show in Belgium,” Ghekiere explains. “The Tour is definitely much bigger than other races, the media and fans watching on the road it's crazy. Also on the TV, it's really, really big. When you do something good there, the impact is really amazing, especially when you are from Belgium which is a cycling country. It really changed my world.”
Ghekiere lives an entirely different existence in 2025 than she did five years ago when she was completing a 13-hour turbo session in her living room. She talks about dreaming of strong performances in the Ardennes and Flanders, as well as defending her mountain jerseys in Grand Tours. She is clearly relishing every opportunity that she’s getting in the whirlwind that is professional bike racing, and her enthusiasm is what has got her this far so quickly. It’s not necessarily about standing on the top step of the podium for Ghekiere, but it’s about staying true to herself and the rider she wants to be. With that, she believes, success will come.
“I want to ride aggressively, go in the breakaway and give it my all,” Ghekiere grins. “Maybe in the future I will go for the general classification, but right now, I just want to race in the way that I love.”
