VIDEO: Tom Dumoulin "For a couple of years I was doubting my cycling career a little bit"

Now 31 years-old, the feeling that a rejuvenated Tom Dumoulin is starting a new season is a nice sight all across the peloton and for the cycling fans, who see the Dutch stage-racer go into his third season with the Jumbo-Visma team.

Dumoulin took a break from cycling back in early 2021 after a set of complicated years where he couldn't follow-up on his brilliant Giro d'Italia win in 2017. Cycling is a complicated sport, both physically and mentally, and the possibility of an early retirement from one of the peloton's biggest stars made that very evident. One year later, a smiling Tom Dumoulin can be seen again whilst on an altitude training camp in Colombia.

"Decided to go to Colombia because I personally really wanted to. I heard many stories about it, from for example Annemiek van Vleuten, but the training possibilities here and how nice the country is and yeah, I was very excited. I wanted to try to do something different than other years where I've been to Sierra Nevada or Tenerife for altitude training camp," he said.

"Now it's something different and the team really liked my idea, so now I'm here with Koen Bouwman and a soigneur, so far I really like it. I've heard about accidents, specially from Bernal of course. It was really bad news, it also asks questions about wether it's safe or not, but so far I haven't experienced any dangerous situations."

After a return to competition last year in June he immediately started the season on the right foot by winning the Dutch national time-trial championships. He finished off the season in early September after a strong display in the Benelux Tour but it was in the Olympic games where he was on the verge of taking a career-defining win as he completed the time-trial with the second fastest time, only to be beaten by his teammate Primož Roglič.

"I've turned out to be quite popular here, a lot of Colombians know who I am and are big fans of cycling in general but also fans of the team and me, I was surprised with how many people know me, the team and cycling, that's super cool. Cycling is really alive here it's good to see, I really like the region it has good roads. Today we went to Las Palmas (a very popular climb in the outskirts of Medellín) to do some uphill efforts so yeah there are plenty of possibilities and all at altitude. Normally when we go to altitude camp we sleep high and train at low altitude, but here that's almost not possible. You train very high which is hard but it's a nice experience," he said on an interview with AS América.

"For a couple of years I was doubting my cycling career a little bit, I started to be overwhelmed a bit by everything so I really had the feeling that I needed a break so I took a break about a year ago which was really nice."

"I enjoyed my time away from the cycling world but I also started to miss it, and yeah I decided to come back, I wanted to, that's maybe also one of the reasons that I went to Colombia now, I feel refreshed and I want to try new things and yeah this is of course perfect, it's combining a good training camp at altitude with a little bit of an adventurous feeling."

Dumoulin has said he plans on leading Jumbo-Visma on a grand tour for 2022 and chances are he is heading for the Giro d'Italia. He will team-up with Tobias Foss in the mountains if everything goes to plan, but until there he will have chances to strike big in the UAE Tour and the Vuelta a Catalunya which should be his main early-season goals.