In 2008 the Dutch national coach had trouble finding five guys who were willing to do the Olympic Games. The road race at the Beijing Games was held the same week as the lucrative post-Tour de France criteriums. You would race for start money every night, entertaining the public. When you went to Beijng you would miss out on the extra money, while at the Olympics there was nothing to earn but respect. We as a team ended up dragging Niki Terpstra, who was doing the team pursuit back then, out of the Beijing velodrome to help us climbers in the first 150 kilometres of the race. I didn’t get much of a result if I remember rightly but that wasn’t the most important thing anyway. What was important was that we could make it to the basketball stadium fast to watch China versus the USA. Then I played at being a tourist for three more days before heading back to Europe where the next races were on the calendar.