The Dutch arrive on the UCI Road World Championships as one of the dominant nations within the sport and each elite males and elite girls will discipline highly effective groups, potential rainbow jersey winners and medal contenders within the street 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 to this point, 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 street 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.
History
It’s not shocking {that a} cycling-friendly nation just like the Netherlands has a wealthy historical past in almost all classes and disciplines on the World Championships.
In elite males’s and elite girls’s street racing, the nation has seen among the most dramatic performances within the 90 editions of the boys’s street race, with 64 editions of the ladies’s street race.
Since Theo Middelkamp received the nation its first elite males’s street race world title in 1947, the Netherlands has gone on to safe eight extra because of Jan Janssen (1964), Harm Ottenbros (1969), Hennie Kuiper (1975), again to again victories for Gerrie Knetemann (1978) and Jan Raas (1979), and Joop Zoetemelk (1985). However, 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 girls’s staff has seen way more success within the street 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 street 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 observe racing.
The gifted elite girls’s staff has not stopped at Vos, and has gone on to win 5 extra street 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 essentially the most prolifically profitable staff, subsequent to the French, within the historical past of elite girls’s street 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 girls 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 Men: 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 Women mixed: Demi Vollering, Puck Pieterse, Marianne Vos, Riejanne Markus, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Thalita de Jong and Mischa Bredewold
U23 Men: Huub Artz, Tibor del Grosso, Wessel Mouris, Darren van Bekkum and Menno Huizing
Junior Men: Senna Remijn, Ko Molenaar, Jurgen Summer Month, Ruud Nagengast and Gijs Schoonvelde
Junior Women: Megan Arens, Esmee Blok, Fee Knaven, Puck Langenbarg and Noï Moes
Key Riders
Mathieu van der Poel traces up because the defending champion after profitable the street race title in Glasgow final 12 months. While sporting the rainbow jersey through the commerce season this 12 months, Van der Poel had a exceptional Spring Classics marketing campaign that noticed him win the E3 Saxo Classic after which take back-to-back wins on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. After a lacklustre mid-season after which taking day without work to get well from knee ache, Van der Poel solely lately 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 of 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 does 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 through the stage racing season the place she received consecutive general titles at La Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Women, Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse. Her greatest objective 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 will likely be chomping on the bit for a victory and the rainbow jersey.
She traces up with three-time former street race world champion, Marianne Vos, who after almost 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 Games and the factors jersey on the Tour de France Femmes. This season she has elevated her profession complete of elite street race victories to a whopping 255!
The Dutch staff will likely be all-in for Vollering and Vos to win the elite title through the mixed elite-U23 girls’s street 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 high favourites and they’re going to put all their give attention to 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 signifies 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 point for the elite males’s staff is that the course does not essentially go well with Van der Poel in addition to Glasgow did, and the depth of the staff may not be as robust as among the different nations.
The elite girls’s staff line up with essentially the most highly effective roster, on paper, which is par for the course in the case of the World Championships or nearly another main worldwide occasion fielding nationwide groups.
The course appears completely suited to Vollering due to her all-around strengths as a profitable stage racer and a one-day Classics rider. While she had a sequence of stage race wins this 12 months, she has additionally had stellar spring campaigns, significantly final 12 months the place she received the Ardennes triple. She can climb, has a strong dash, and may time trial, so look ahead to Vollering to make the choice and play her position within the remaining run-in to Zurich. The staff have Vos as a primary contender, too, and he or she has proven that she remains to be on the high of her sport in the case of 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 profitable, is that it could result in inter-team rivalry. Although this may need occurred prior to now, it seems that the staff in Zurich has one appointed a pacesetter in Vollering, and everyone seems to be on board with that call.
They will, after all, want to have the ability to adapt accordingly relying on how the race performs out on the street. But with riders like Mischa Bredewold, Riejanne Markus, Pauliena Rooijakkers in a help position for Vollering, she is in the perfect place to win, whereas Vos might be considerably of a wildcard on the flat run-in to Zurich.
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