He knew what was going to happen and yet Ab Geldermans was stunned. The Beverwijkse former cyclist has his ‘own’ street since this afternoon: the Ab Geldermanshof
The Beverwijker breed was moved to tears. “I think it’s wonderful that people put me in the spotlight in this way. Really great, this gives the citizen courage.” He could use a pick-me-up.
Four months ago he broke his hip. Although the recovery is going reasonably well, he is taking walks again, but he feels that the rehabilitation should go faster. “My muscles have to get stronger. I try to train them as much as possible. So that we can go out a little more often. We like to walk on the beach of Wijk aan Zee.”
Text continues below the video
Ab Geldermans – NH News
After Annie Palmen, Rita Hovink, Marco Bakker and artist Jan van der Schoor, Ab Geldermans (87) is the fifth known Beverwijker after whom a street is named. The fact that it is located in the new Binnenduin district is extra special. It is the place where Geldermans grew up. His father had a market garden there. Young Ab had to roll up his sleeves as a child, while he preferred to cycle. His father initially forbade him to do so. But later had to admit that the choice for the bike had been the right one.
Geldermans may have been given a street of his own for his performance on the racing bike; his father has a statue in Beverwijk. The bronze sculpture De Tuinder (also known as ‘the Schoffelaar’) at the intersection of Plesmanweg and Laan der Nederlanden was made after his father’s example. “If you look closely, you can recognize my father’s face in it,” Ab says.
Text continues below the photo
Ab Geldermans became Dutch champion, won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, stages in Grand Tours such as the Vuelta and the Tour of Germany. But the public mainly knows him from the Tour de France. In the 1962 edition he wore the yellow jersey for a day. In the stage from Dinard to Brest, he was part of a leading group that was so energetic that the lead at the finish was enough for him to put on the leader’s jersey.
Text continues below the photo
Geldermans enjoyed the jersey for a lifetime (which he had to hand in again the next day). The sports shop that he started in the center of Beverwijk after his career, flourished partly thanks to his yellow jersey, which hangs framed in the shop. His son Ab Jr. has been running the business for several decades, but people have not forgotten his father.
Still, especially at the time of the Tour de France, older cycling enthusiasts from all over the country come to his door for a chat and a picture. At 87, Geldermans is the oldest living yellow jersey wearer.
“Too modest as a cyclist? Well, being bold is simply not in my character”
Geldermans has often been told that he was too nice for hard cycling, that he lacked the character to slam his fist on the table. At a fairly young age he made himself subordinate to his French leader Jacques Anquetil, five-time Tour winner.
The Beverwijker probably would have won many more matches if he had taken a different route and had become a leader with a different team instead of always being servants for the French legend. “But I was fine with Anquetil. It just happened. Maybe I should have been a bit bolder and had to go my own way. But that’s just not in my character. And let’s be honest: I have quite a nice career after all. had?”
Geldermans about Jan Janssen’s Tour victory: “I kept telling him not to give up”
He has also caused a furore as a team leader. More than ten years after he stopped as a cyclist, Ab Geldermans was sports director of Jan Janssen when he became the first Dutchman to win the final classification of the Tour de France in 1968. The image in which they both roll on their shoulders on the velodrome in Bois de Vincennes is part of the collective Dutch sports memory.
He has received too little appreciation for his role as sports director in that memorable Tour de France. Leading the Dutch team at that time was a difficult task due to the divergent interests of the riders. Jan Janssen was not undisputed as a leader.
His teammates had no faith in his overall victory and also felt that they were being paid too little. Some riders dropped out before the start in Vittel, most others got off on the way to Paris. Janssen was on the verge of giving up several times, but Geldermans always got him through. “I kept talking to him. In the end he started to believe in it and he won the Tour”, said Geldermans half a century after that legendary July 21st, 1968.