CRASH LANDING IN TIRRENO
On stage 4 of Tirreno-Adriatico, Dumoulin crashed out of the race. It was a testing spring, as mechanical issues and another crash had also scuppered his chances at the Abu Dhabi Tour
Pro: The start of the year didn’t quite go to plan...
TD: Everything I could do wrong, I did during the spring. I wanted it too much. I trained too hard and I took too little rest. Focusing solely on my race performance didn’t work. What I should have done was try to relax during the lead-up to these races. I failed at that. But secretly I already knew I wouldn’t be able to do it. The day before this picture was taken, I had a bad feeling. My intention was to drop back to the gruppetto and ride out the stage with them. Then I fell off, which really hurt and I decided I was done.
Pro: You’re intelligent and you know how racing works but these setbacks still happen…
TD: It’s almost to be expected. It would be strange if these things didn’t happen to me. With everything that happened last year and without having the time to properly process it, it was only natural to get stuck. It made me overdo everything. And I’m totally unashamed of that, even as an intelligent guy. In hindsight, I’m glad that it went wrong in Abu Dhabi and that I lost form there because of technical issues. If the spring phase hadn’t gone so terribly, it would have been during the Giro. It was probably the best time to have an ‘off’ period.
Pro: After Tirreno, a long ride with Bram Tankink and Laurens ten Dam gave you a new lease of life. That day you trashed them both, Tankink said.
TD: I wanted to challenge myself, and if Bram wanted to follow, well hey, that’s his choice! That day really helped. I left Italy feeling sh*t. Everything went wrong there and I was upset with myself. I should have stood in front of the mirror: ‘This is not how it works. I don’t like this way.’ I wanted to race relaxed, to cycle like how I used to, just because I loved it. On that ride in the Ardennes I was hurting myself, hurting others. It’s a game and I had forgotten that.