THE NEW GOLDEN AGE

With her win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège this spring, SD Worx rider Demi Vollering announced herself as the standard bearer for the next generation of great Dutch cyclists. She tells Procycling what it’s like to be compared to Anna van der Breggen

Writer Adam Becket /// Portraits Raymond Kerckhoffs

The Dutch lived their golden age in the 17th century when the small nation capitalised on their economic and maritime power to become one of the most influential countries in the world. This might feel incongruous today, but the Netherlands was home to the most advanced art, science, and philosophy of the age. It was the time of Frans Hals, Rembrandt and tulip mania. To look at some of the great Dutch art of the time is to see a country with a burgeoning middle class; a nation very sure of itself.

The past decade has seen a Dutch golden age in women’s cycling, one that would make the burghers of 17th century Amsterdam smile with recognition. Six out of the last 10 winners of the Worlds road race and eight of the last 10 winners of the Giro Rosa have been Dutch.

Anna van der Breggen, Marianne Vos, Chantal van den Broek-Blaak and Annemiek van Vleuten have been the figureheads. No golden age lasts forever, though. Van der Breggen is retiring this season, Van den Broek-Blaak next. Van Vleuten is 38, and Vos is 34 and has been at the top of the sport for 15 years. This Dutch quartet will leave a void. The question is, who will fill it? Demi Vollering, who at 24 is primed to succeed her elder compatriots, looks a likely successor. Of her generation, the other brightest prospects are the Belgian Lotte Kopecky and the Dane Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, but neither has won a monument. And neither are part of the Oranje boom.

It is so simple being a Dutch cycling fan. Golden ages might not last forever, but that doesn’t matter when one simply follows another.

The symbolism of this year’s Liège- Bastogne-Liège was clear, with the passing on of the torch of Dutch cycling happening before our eyes. In the rainbow stripes, Van der Breggen powered on the front for the final 10km to set up her team-mate Vollering. Vollering is seven years Van der Breggen’s junior and in her first year at WorldTour level. Van der Breggen had won half of the editions of the race up to that point, but no matter, she believed in Vollering, who comfortably outsprinted 2019 winner Van Vleuten. It was realism worthy of a Rembrandt portrait. There was no subtext - what you saw was what you got.