Selection of ladies to represent Netherlands at the Olympic Games in Paris confirmed
Cycling
Loes Gunnewijk has completed the women's selection for the Olympic Games. The national coach will choose Ellen van Dijk, Demi Vollering, Marianne Vos and Lorena Wiebes to represent their country in Paris.
The Dutch team will try to get a rematch for the Tokyo 2021 fiasco when lone escapee Anna Kiesenhofer was able to outfox the peloton. Unaware that there was another rider on the road, the Dutch ladies raced only for second place, missing their chance to catch the Austrian in time.
National coach Gunnewijk has therefore opted for a team with several leaders. On the course in Paris, fast women such as Marianne Vos and Lorena Wiebes seem to have a chance of winning a medal, as does Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering. There are medal chances in the time trial for Van Dijk and Vollering.
"Obviously it was a difficult choice with the wide range of riders that the Netherlands currently has," comments national coach Gunnewijk. "These four ladies complement each other and absolutely have the qualities to shine in orange and go for medals. All the recent successes of the riders underline this. We look forward to the preparations with this team with great confidence and will go for nothing less than gold."
Team Netherlands for Olympic Games in Paris:
Ellen van Dijk (also timetrial)
Demi Vollering (also timetrial)
Marianne Vos
Lorena Wiebes
Anyone know the dates of the 2 races? Would like to see how far apart they are for those doing the double.
Especially as the Dutch have a habit of “screwing up” under pressure when they’re among the favourites. This kind of team is fine if you have a strong manager who lays out the rules clearly, unfortunately, especially in cycling, managers are not chosen on the basis of this competence and riders often take their own initiatives (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Olympics where they have to ride without radio). Will they stick to a team plan (if there is one) or all go for themselves? Remco and Wout also provided a good lesson in how not to win ;-) In defense of the selector, after the shitstorm in Ecuador, it’s not surprising he made a selection that doesn’t leave out an obvious, imagine the media hell of explaining leaving any one or more of these out. This is gonna be a Kuss, Vingegaard, Rogliç Vuelta all over again and frankly, should have a certain entertainment value. Assuming she’s selected (no-one has spoken about her in 4 years) Kiesenhofer will be rubbing her hands :-)
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- Agreed. He was dropped hard on every other climb. Without the run up he might have not been in the final sprint. And why not try it? Kudos for him for trying to make the race rather than just following.mij06-04-2025
- To me it seemed like an attempt to get through the climb closer to the front, since his burst power was lacking. If he starts earlier he can take the hill slower and still not be too far behind by the top. It kept him in that group of 4, where he might have been dropped had they all stayed together to the bottom of the climb. Who knows, though. I’m just guessing.RidesHills06-04-2025
- No idea, there have been suggestions something is amiss, maybe he doesn’t have all his mind connected at some moments, I’d definitely do a thorough review of his consciousness under effort.Mistermaumau06-04-2025
- Pogacar and van der Poel have won the last 6 Monuments, and 11 of the last 13 Monuments. There’s never been domination like this by two riders, and we are in our third year of it. (Merckx and de Vlaeminck won a total of 30 Monuments between 1966 and 1979, but others were winning along the way, as well.)RidesHills06-04-2025
- Yes but what was the dumb effort by Van Aert to drop Pogacar, Vanderpoel and Pederson about.? Just showing face? If he had stayed on the wheels and not wasted energy, he might have got on the podium in the runners up sprint.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- What a loser.
santiagobenites06-04-2025 - I agree about the sprint or drilling it on the flat. Lighter rider versus heavier rider. Inertia is the natural tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion (e.g the heavier riders momentum) and objects at rest to stay at rest, unless a force causes the velocity to change.Cyclingsbestfan06-04-2025
- Definitely, he is a great rider, and this season might even be as good as last (in a perfect world, a few more Monuments, a Tour-Vuelta double, and the Worlds again), but he has to do this for years on end to compare to Merckx’s results from roughly 69 to 74. Yes, times have changed, yes competition is different, yes speeds are higher, and so on, but let’s let Pogacar be Pogacar and give him time. We can evaluate his career when he retires. Until then, let’s enjoy it while we have it.RidesHills06-04-2025
- Excellent work and show from all of them, glad to see van Aert got back to shape in time. Bring on P-RMistermaumau06-04-2025
- All this seems right but the problem is that two riders of differing weight going at the same speed will have different power and they will also have different power per weight yet are both (in theory, i.e. when trying their hardest) at their max,which means the lighter one is proportionally losing more to the wind (working harder to overcome), the heavier one proportionally losing more to rolling resistance and bounce. The extremely difficult calculations to know which of the 2-3 causes the bigger effect under what exact conditions is what makes it impossible to say who will benefit most in many situations when they aren’t different enough to make it obvious, i.e. a puny climber of 50kg vs a sprinter of 80kg on either the flat or a mountain.Mistermaumau06-04-2025