If you watch pro racing, you know there are all kinds of names that might be tough if English is your first language. Well, in fact, all names can be tricky if they are in another tongue, no matter what yours is.

Not everyone is a polyglot, so it can be hit or miss learning the right way to say something.

When Jonas Vingegaard (Hansen) rose on the world stage, I personally cringed every time people said his name wrong. As someone of Danish descent—with a similar middle name, Stjernegaard—I was quick to correct people.

🔊🗣️ | How do you pronounce the names of your favorite riders?

This winter, we added pronunciations for nearly 1,000 riders, from Tour de France-stars to riders deep in the Asian UCI-circuits.

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— 🟥🟥⬛️ ProCyclingStats.com (@ProCyclingStats) January 22, 2026

But, at the same time, I learned that I was saying riders’ names wrong too—Tadej Pogačar is one that everyone outside of Slovenia had a hard time with at first. Thankfully Canadian Cycling Magazine‘s eddy-in-chief Matthew Pioro is of Polish descent, so he helped me learn how to properly say another tricky one (for me), Kasia Niewiadoma.

On proper pronunciation

In 2025, I even wrote about a few commentators who really nailed names and how I respected them for it.

José Been, who is Dutch and a polyglot with a deep cycling pedigree—her father was a directeur sportif—is not just an expert in pro cycling; she’s also a pro at pronunciation. (If you’ve been to the Netherlands, you already know you’ve been saying “Gouda” wrong this whole time.)

Jonas Vingegaard is now a Hansen and I for one, very much approve

There’s also Rob Hatch, who is English but has learned all the right ways to say Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, and French names. So it certainly can be done—despite some commentators who either haven’t tried or just don’t care.

It’s important to say people’s names correctly. That’s why the popular website ProCyclingStats recently unveiled a feature that has a pronunciation guide for more than 1,000 riders.

The implemnetation of the pronunciation guides

The idea for the pronunciation guide has actually existed for quite some time, but due to lack of time it remained on the back burner, PCS’s Stephan van der Zwan said. (By the way, you can tell Stephan is Dutch by the lack of caps on “van der”—much like MvdP. A Flemish rider would capitalize that, unless you’re Wout van Aert, because his grandparents were Dutch.)

Van der Zwan said that “over the past few months, our full-time employee Mark van der Linden helped give it new momentum, and as a team we’ve been actively reaching out to riders and teams ever since. It’s really taken off. More than 1,100 riders have now recorded their own names!”

Riders record themselves, guaranteeing accurary

And it’s not just the famous riders who have the handy guides.

“We approach riders and teams ourselves, regardless of level. And most important, all pronunciations are recorded by the riders themselves, no one else. As more and more riders participate, it’s become a bit of a trend, with others eager not to be left behind,” he said. “It’s been exciting to see it grow and start becoming a real resource for both fans and commentators alike.”

In fact, former pro Robbie MacEwan, an Aussie, was saying how helpful the feature was recently while doing commentary with Been during Étoile de Bessèges on Flobikes.com.

Furthemore, Been told Canadian Cycling Magazine that the feature is extraordinarily helpful—and a very good thing.

“I find it important as a person and as a cycling commentator to pronounce someone’s name correctly. Your name is the most unique thing you have,” she said. “Of course, not everyone is a polyglot and can pronounce everything 100 percent right, but I feel like at least you should make an effort. Having the name pronunciation videos teams publish on their socials, or Movistar has done for a few years now on their site as one of the first teams ever, or now ProCyclingStats, is very helpful.”

You can check out the new feature right beside the riders’ names on ProCyclingStats.com.