"They wanted to make her the second Marianne Vos": Former Dutch rider blames team pressure for Fem van Empel's exit

Former cyclo-cross world champion Hennie Stamsnijder has launched a stinging critique of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, arguing that the management's mishandling of Fem van Empel led to her indefinite break from the sport. He claimed the team failed to protect the young star by trying to force her into a mold she didn't fit.

Van Empel, a multiple-time world champion in the discipline, stepped away from competition in December after admitting she had lost the joy of racing. "At the moment, both the motivation and the enjoyment I have had in cycling for years are missing. I wanted to be honest and fair about this with the team. For now, this is the best choice. It feels like the right time for a new chapter. I am very grateful for all the support I have received from the team, my family, and the fans, and I look forward to what the future brings," she said in a statement.

According to Stamsnijder, the writing had been on the wall, but the team intervened too late. "What I find most unfortunate about this cross season is that they didn't intervene in time at Visma | Lease a Bike with Fem van Empel," Stamsnijder said in an interview to Wielerflits. "It was a big mistake that they wanted to make her the second Marianne Vos. She hit a wall so hard because of that. She could have simply become world champion in the cross for the fourth time, but that is all over now."

Stamsnijder argued that the pressure applied regarding Van Empel's road career was unrealistic and very detrimental to her mental health.

"I blame the team management for wanting to make a second Marianne Vos out of her. That's how it was presented a bit, with her road ambitions. If you then notice that that is not realistic..."

He contrasted Visma | Lease a Bike’s approach with that of the Roodhooft brothers (managers of Alpecin-Deceuninck/Fenix-Deceuninck), suggesting the latter are better at recognizing when an athlete is at their limit. "The team management must also say at a certain point: stop for a moment. That is what the Roodhooft brothers do. They see: this is going wrong, stop."

Former cyclist Thijs Al added that the scale of the team's infrastructure likely contributed to the "fatal" pressure. He suggested that if Van Empel returns, it should perhaps be with a smaller outfit. "Even if the team doesn't explicitly put pressure on, the entourage that hangs around it has become fatal for Fem, I think," Al noted.

Stamsnijder agreed, pointing out the visual weight of the team's presence at races. "As a team, you create tremendously high expectations when you put a bus, a truck, and the whole shebang down there... The expectation pattern is blown up so high. Then you can only fall."

Despite the harsh exit, Stamsnijder remains optimistic that Van Empel can find her way back to the sport, provided she rediscovers her love for the bike on her own terms.

"If she starts to like cycling again, if she does some training rides again, and it all doesn't go as difficult as before, then it will come," he said. "There are examples of top riders who are away for one or two years and then think: I'm going to do something again anyway."