National coach Ten Dam, too, cannot let Dutch women win at the World Cycling World Cup – thanks to the diarrhea

Where did it go wrong? If the Dutch riders drop in one by one after the finish into the compress, it quickly becomes clear what was going on: illness. Riejanne Markus (fifth) had diarrhea in recent days, she says. And also Demi Vollering (seventh) was “on the race” and, moreover, “vomiting” during the race. And the other riders? Volling: “One after the other came to me and said, I don’t feel well.” The circumstances at the first World Cup cycling in Africa have taken the Dutch riders – although they do not want to use it as an excuse.

The World Championships for the Women in Kigali (Rwanda) had a particularly surprising winner on Saturday: Magdaleine Vallieres (24). A totally unknown rider from Canada – so unknown that the journalists in the squeeze tent desperately grabbed their phones when it became clear that she would win the rainbow jersey. The New Zealand Niamh Fisher-Black was second, Mavi García from Spain third.

For the Dutch team – one of the strongest in the world – the game ended in a hefty disappointment: the riders could not play a role in the race for a moment. Markus and Volling were the highest ranked riders. The rest ended in the tail of the rankings.

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Ambition to win gold

That was not what Laurens ten Dam had introduced himself at his first World Cup. The new women’s union coach had come to Rwanda with the ambition to win gold, he said in advance. He believed it could be. “But yes,” he says afterwards in the small white material tent of the Dutch team behind the finish. “It just wasn’t physically in today.”

When former rider and Wielerpodcaster ten Dam started working at the beginning of this year, the necessary had to be done. From his predecessor Loes Gunnewijk he inherited a generation of riders that overflows from talent, but in recent years he often fell into big prizes due to tactical inability and mutual animosity. The low point was the World Cup last year in Zurich. At that time, the Dutch team was by far the strongest team, but the riders wasted that force majeure due to large -scale tactical blunder. Courted world champion Demi Volling had to watch her rival Lotte Kopecky from Belgium ran away with gold.

After the fiasco of Zurich, Gunnewijk swung and Ten Dam was hired – a man who is known in the cycling world as a socially agile atmosphere maker. It was clear that after the previous World Cup there was ‘an atmosphere of negativity’ around the team, he tells a few days before departure to Rwanda at the office of his podcast company in Bajeskwartier in Amsterdam. “When I called the riders one by one to tell me that I was the new national coach, a few told me:” Such that you dare to dare with us! “

Lei

Ten Dam started “with the clean slate,” he says. “I’m not going to Hearsay.” His method to improve the atmosphere: lots of personal contact with the riders. He spoke with them regularly, kept in touch via WhatsApp. At Demi Volling – the biggest target of criticism after Zurich – he personally went by at home in Switzerland.

Another method: stepping on the bike with riders ‘between whom it has written’. At the end of April, on the end of April, on the day after the Amstel Gold Race, made a ‘exit trip’ in South Limburg with two riders-he does not want to mention their names. “We drank coffee and then I said: ladies, I think you should talk.” When three riders recently stayed at Livigno, Italy at the same time, he encouraged them per WhatsApp to train together.

In the end, Ten Dam says in his office, it is about “creating a good, relaxed atmosphere.” The riders “don’t have to become girlfriends, as long as they are aware that someone in the Orange has to win the World Cup on Saturday 27 September.”

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Traumacor

Ten Dam Pièce de Résistance Was the annual team day at the beginning of July. He did not hold that as usual at Sportcentrum Papendal, but at himself in the office in the Bajeskwartier. Orange team clothing was fitted, the riders were given a trauma course and after lunch Ten Dam showed a fragment The Redema Team – A documentary about how the American National Basketball Team was forged into a close unit in the run -up to the 2008 Olympic Games.

After the fragment, Ten Dam kept what he chuckled “a strong one motivational speech“Mentions. His message, which he also transmitted at other times:” How do you want to go into history? As a group of ladies who fight each other the tent, or as the most dominant cycling team ever – who together roll up the entire competition? “

When planning for the World Cup, Ten Dam insisted on the cycling association that the riders would travel to Kigali earlier than usual. He wanted to be there a week in advance. Rwanda is far away and Kigali is 1,500 meters altitude. “I know some height experts from my own cycling career. After a few bubbles it was clear to me that we had to go there early.”

Smog and mopeds

It turns out to be a good choice, once in Kigali. The circumstances are indeed heavy, Ten Dam and the riders tell in the first days. Due to the height, they do not get their usual wattages, their heartbeat rises and they recover less quickly. And then there is the smog, because of the many mopeds and trucks in the city. When she returns from a training round, says Anna van der Breggen, her entire face is black.

In the Marriot Hotel in Kigali, where the Dutch team is staying, Ten Dam does in the week before the road race that he is good at: making atmosphere. He goes on training rides: himself on the bike or on a white scooter in their wake. For all riders he had a special laundry bag made with a nickname he made up himself. Demi Volling is ‘Plukje’, because she is always fiddling with a tuft of hair. Shirin van Anrooij, the youngest of the group, is ‘De Benjamin’. And Anna van der Breggen, who returned to the Peloton after four years this season: ‘De Hertreder’.

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Gold can win, Ten Dam says two days before the race on the terrace of the Marriot. The preparations have run perfectly, he sees ‘a real team’. The only thing that remains is the tactical discussion the next day. And the course itself of course.

It’s raining offers

The match, eleven times a local round of 15 kilometers through Kigali with two mean climbs, starts defensively. Exactly as provided in advance, because of the many altimeters (3,350 meters) and the heavy conditions: whoever demarcers too early, blows themselves up at this height. So the peloton stays together in the first half of the race, while it rains at the back: in the end, more than half of the riders will end with ‘DNF’ (Did not finish) behind the name.

But as soon as the course really starts, it appears that the Dutch riders are struggling. Anna van der Breggen has to release at thirty kilometers before the finish. Riejanne Markus is in the good escape, drives very strongly, but eventually has to release on the Kasseienklim in the Kimihuhura district. Fulling can stay with the other favorites, but never drives in a promising position. The rest is nowhere to be found. Well before Magdaleine Vallieres places her winning demarrage, it is clear: no podium place for the Netherlands.

Ten Dam is disappointed, he says afterwards in the small white tent. Everything was so well prepared. The Dutch team was in the best hotel in Kigali, “not in the slums in a guesthouse or something”. The team doctor even checked whether the fruit had not been washed up with polluted tap water at breakfast. And then: illness.

Has his first job failed now? No, Ten Dam says – certainly not. Everything that had to be different after the fiasco of Zurich now went differently. “The tactics and communication in the competition were great. They all listened to.” His most important mission at the start was a close team forging. “And that assignment is accomplished.”

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