The Dutch arrive on the UCI Highway World Championships as one of the crucial dominant nations within the sport and each elite males and elite ladies will area highly effective groups, potential rainbow jersey winners and medal contenders within the highway racing occasions held on the ultimate weekend of the 10-day occasion on September 28-29 in Zurich.
Demi Vollering is the one rider from the Dutch staff to safe a medal at these world championships thus far, incomes silver within the particular person time trial behind gold medal winner Grace Brown from Australia.
The tides may flip in favour of the Dutch within the elite highway races as the boys’s staff line up with defending champion Mathieu van der Poel and the ladies’s staff consists of Demi Vollering and multiple-time world champion Marianne Vos.
Historical past
It is not shocking {that a} cycling-friendly nation just like the Netherlands has a wealthy historical past in practically all classes and disciplines on the World Championships.
In elite males’s and elite ladies’s highway racing, the nation has seen a few of the most dramatic performances within the 90 editions of the boys’s highway race, with 64 editions of the ladies’s highway race.
Since Theo Middelkamp received the nation its first elite males’s highway race world title in 1947, the Netherlands has gone on to safe eight extra due to Jan Janssen (1964), Hurt Ottenbros (1969), Hennie Kuiper (1975), again to again victories for Gerrie Knetemann (1978) and Jan Raas (1979), and Joop Zoetemelk (1985). Nevertheless, there was then a 38-year drought for the elite males’s staff till Van der Poel received the rainbow jersey in Glasgow in 2023.
The elite ladies’s staff has seen way more success within the highway race on the World Championships with 14 victories beginning with Keetie Hage’s wins in 1968 and 1976, and Tineke Fopma in 1971. Gold medals additionally got here from Petra de Bruin (1979) and Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel (1991-1993).
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Then got here an 18-year-old Marianne Vos, who received her first highway race world title in 2006, however went on to win two extra in 2012 and 13. Vos has amassed a complete of 13 world titles, that additionally consists of eight in cyclocross and two in monitor racing.
The gifted elite ladies’s staff has not stopped at Vos, and has gone on to win 5 extra highway race titles with Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (2017), Anna van der Breggen (2018 and 2020) and Annemiek van Vleuten (2019 and 2022). This makes the Netherlands probably the most prolifically profitable staff, subsequent to the French, within the historical past of elite ladies’s highway racing on the Worlds.
The Dutch staff have just one earlier winner within the elite males’s particular person time trial, Tom Dumoulin (2017), however once more, the elite ladies have excelled within the self-discipline, taking eight world titles: Leontien Zijlaard-van Moorsel (1998-1999), Ellen van Dijk (2013, 2021-2022), Annemiek van Vleuten (2017-2018), and Anna van der Breggen (2020).
Lineups
Elite Males: Mathieu van der Poel, Oscar Riesebeek, Wilco Kelderman, Bart Lemmen, Frank van den Broek, Daan Hoole, Bauke Mollema, Sam Oomen and Sjoerd Bax
Elite/U23 Ladies mixed: Demi Vollering, Puck Pieterse, Marianne Vos, Riejanne Markus, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Thalita de Jong and Mischa Bredewold
U23 Males: Huub Artz, Tibor del Grosso, Wessel Mouris, Darren van Bekkum and Menno Huizing
Junior Males: Senna Remijn, Ko Molenaar, Jurgen Summer season Month, Ruud Nagengast and Gijs Schoonvelde
Junior Ladies: Megan Arens, Esmee Blok, Charge Knaven, Puck Langenbarg and Noï Moes
Key Riders
Mathieu van der Poel strains up because the defending champion after successful the highway race title in Glasgow final yr. Whereas sporting the rainbow jersey throughout the commerce season this yr, Van der Poel had a outstanding Spring Classics marketing campaign that noticed him win the E3 Saxo Traditional after which take back-to-back wins on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. After a lacklustre mid-season after which taking break day to recuperate from knee ache, Van der Poel solely not too long ago received his first race since April on the opening stage of the Tour de Luxembourg, the place he completed second general.
There are questions surrounding whether or not he’ll be capable to survive assaults from
race favourites Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) or Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), and that he misplaced 2kg to try to be aggressive on the circuit’s climbs. He would not line up because the outright favorite, but when anybody can take back-to-back titles, it is Van der Poel.
Demi Vollering‘s season did not begin in addition to she’d hoped however that rotated throughout the stage racing season the place she received consecutive general titles at La Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Ladies, Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse. Her greatest aim of the season was to defend her title on the Tour de France Femmes, and whereas she received the stage 3 time trial and stage 8 atop Alpe d’Huez, she misplaced the yellow jersey to rival and general champion Kasia Niewiadoma by simply 4 seconds. After one other second general on the Tour de Suisse and second within the time trial in Zurich final weekend, Vollering can be chomping on the bit for a victory and the rainbow jersey.
She strains up with three-time former highway race world champion, Marianne Vos, who after practically twenty years of world-class competitors, remains to be performing on the highest stage. Wins this season embrace Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold Race, a stage at La Vuelta Femenina, an general win at Catalunya, and he or she additionally took the silver medal on the Paris Olympic Video games and the factors jersey on the Tour de France Femmes. This season she has elevated her profession whole of elite highway race victories to a whopping 255!
The Dutch staff can be all-in for Vollering and Vos to win the elite title throughout the mixed elite-U23 ladies’s highway race, however additionally they have a contender for the under-23 class with cross-country mountain bike champion and Tour de France stage winner Puck Pieterse.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Mathieu van der Poel might not have been at his greatest in current months, however the elite males’s staff nonetheless line up with one of many prime favourites and they’re going to put all their deal with supporting him to a second consecutive victory.
The Dutch staff have acknowledged that they are going to be hoping for an ‘attacking race’ on the difficult parcours, which is able to play extra within the favour of Van der Poel. Having one staff chief implies that Van der Poel may have the complete help of what appears like a balanced staff that features a mixture of expertise with Bauke Mollema, Oscar Riesebeek, Wilco Kelderman, Sam Oomen, Sjoerd Bax, Daan Hoole, and Bart Lemmen and giving alternative to youthful prospects like Frank van den Broek.
The extra apparent weak spot for the elite males’s staff is that the course would not essentially swimsuit Van der Poel in addition to Glasgow did, and the depth of the staff may not be as robust as a few of the different nations.
The elite ladies’s staff line up with probably the most highly effective roster, on paper, which is par for the course in relation to the World Championships or virtually some other main worldwide occasion fielding nationwide groups.
The course appears completely suited to Vollering due to her all-around strengths as a successful stage racer and a one-day Classics rider. Whereas she had a collection of stage race wins this yr, she has additionally had stellar spring campaigns, notably final yr the place she received the Ardennes triple. She will climb, has a robust dash, and might time trial, so look ahead to Vollering to make the choice and play her position within the ultimate run-in to Zurich. The staff have Vos as a principal contender, too, and he or she has proven that she remains to be on the prime of her sport in relation to one-day racing.
The draw back of getting a staff as highly effective because the Dutch, when any one among their seven riders is able to successful, is that it may possibly result in inter-team rivalry. Though this might need occurred prior to now, it seems that the staff in Zurich has one appointed a frontrunner in Vollering, and everyone seems to be on board with that call.
They’ll, after all, want to have the ability to adapt accordingly relying on how the race performs out on the highway. However with riders like Mischa Bredewold, Riejanne Markus, Pauliena Rooijakkers in a help position for Vollering, she is in one of the best place to win, whereas Vos may very well be considerably of a wildcard on the flat run-in to Zurich.
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