Laura de Vaan

Laura de Vaan
	Laura de Vaan (2016)
To person
Date of birth	August 11, 1980
nation	Netherlands
discipline	Paracycling (H5) - street
Most important successes
	Paralympics 2016 - road racing 2016 - individual time trial 2012 - road racing 2012 - individual time trial
	Last updated: October 18, 2018

Laura de Vaan (born August 11, 1980 in Uden ) is a Dutch handbiker . She starts in class H5 .

Laura de Vaan has been in a wheelchair since 1996 after injuring herself falling down stairs. She soon looked around for a sport that she could do with a wheelchair and initially played wheelchair tennis . After a few years, however, she was unable to continue doing this sport for physical reasons, so in 2004 she switched to handbiking.

In 2005 de Vaan competed in her first handbike competition and took part in European championships for the first time. De Vaan: “To everyone's surprise and also to my own, I came home with bronze.” She won two medals, one each in the road race and one in the individual time trial .

In 2008 Laura de Vaan took part in the Summer Paralympics for the first time, four years later, at the Summer Paralympics 2012 in London , she won two medals: a bronze with individual time trials behind the Germans Andrea Eskau and Dorothee Vieth , and a silver in the road race behind Eskau. In 2011 she won the world title in the individual time trial. After several podium places at the UCI Paracycling Road World Championships , she was able to repeat this success in 2015 . In 2016 she won two medals at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro , a silver in the road race and a bronze in the individual time trial. At the UCI Paracycling Road World Championships 2017 in Pietermaritzburg , South Africa , she won silver in both the individual time trial and the road race.