“Great riders like Wout Van Aert, Tadej Pogacar, and Mathieu van der Poel don’t come along very often,” said the boss of the Conti team, who wasn’t worried about the “fall” of Dutch cycling.

The fact that there isn’t another big leader in Dutch racing besides the 29-year-old Mathieu van der Poel is kind of hidden by his huge success. Being in charge of the Dutch international team Metec – SOLARWATT p/b Mantel This is something that Michel Megens (a team that has grown up 16 pros) notices, but they quickly point out that the situation in Dutch cycling is not as bad as it might seem.

A magazine called RIDE asks Megens if there really is a drop in Dutch cycling. He firmly answers, “I don’t agree with that at all.” I’m telling you, Olav Kooij, Marijn van den Berg, Tibor Del Grosso, Arvid de Kleijn, and Sjoerd Bax, not to lie. And no, they won’t become great riders like Van der Poel and Tom Dumoulin or win the Monument like Poels and Mollema. That being said, there was a time before Dumoulin when the Netherlands didn’t win any Monuments either.

“Great players like Van der Poel, Wout van Aert, and Tadej Pogacar don’t come along very often.” I believe it is too strong to say right away that it is a bad thing for Dutch racing. I also don’t agree with the idea that training teams today only look at how well a star pedals. I believe that a person has many more skills than ideals. To become a world-class rider, you also need those skills.

I believe it is unfair that Dutch teams always choose riders from other countries. These foreign riders can do what they want, but they don’t care about the young dogs in the Netherlands. “That seems odd to me.”

“Then you can tell Michel, ‘You should make your own ProTeam.'” That sounds like something we should do. Because our Tour de Tietema friends don’t give Dutch riders a chance either. It’s funny that they want to ride with a French license now. It doesn’t make sense. But Dutch teams like Team Picnic PostNL and Visma | Lease a Bike could also do better. The fact that the second team only has one Dutch rider on its training squad is crazy.