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.<\/p>\n
Not everyone is a polyglot, so it can be hit or miss learning the right way to say something.<\/p>\n
When Jonas Vingegaard (Hansen) rose on the world stage, I personally cringed every time people said his name wrong. As someone of Danish descent\u2014with a similar middle name, Stjernegaard\u2014I was quick to correct people.<\/p>\n
\ud83d\udd0a\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f | How do you pronounce the names of your favorite riders?<\/p>\n
This winter, we added pronunciations for nearly 1,000 riders, from Tour de France-stars to riders deep in the Asian UCI-circuits.<\/p>\n
Are you a rider or team and missing yours? \u2014 \ud83d\udfe5\ud83d\udfe5\u2b1b\ufe0f ProCyclingStats.com (@ProCyclingStats) January 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n But, at the same time, I learned that I was saying riders\u2019 names wrong too\u2014Tadej Poga\u010dar is one that everyone outside of Slovenia had a hard time with at first. Thankfully Canadian Cycling Magazine\u2018s 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.<\/p>\n On proper pronunciation<\/p>\n In 2025, I even wrote about a few commentators<\/a> who really nailed names and how I respected them for it.<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Been, who is Dutch and a polyglot with a deep cycling pedigree\u2014her father was a directeur sportif\u2014is not just an expert in pro cycling; she\u2019s also a pro at pronunciation. (If you\u2019ve been to the Netherlands, you already know you\u2019ve been saying \u201cGouda\u201d wrong this whole time.)<\/p>\n Jonas Vingegaard is now a Hansen and I for one, very much approve<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n There\u2019s 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\u2014despite some commentators who either haven\u2019t tried or just don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to say people\u2019s names correctly. That\u2019s why the popular website ProCyclingStats recently unveiled a feature that has a pronunciation guide for more than 1,000 riders.<\/p>\n The implemnetation of the pronunciation guides<\/p>\n 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\u2019s Stephan van der Zwan said. (By the way, you can tell Stephan is Dutch by the lack of caps on \u201cvan der\u201d\u2014much like MvdP. A Flemish rider would capitalize that, unless you\u2019re Wout van Aert, because his grandparents were Dutch.)<\/p>\n Van der Zwan said that \u201cover the past few months, our full-time employee Mark van der Linden helped give it new momentum, and as a team we\u2019ve been actively reaching out to riders and teams ever since. It\u2019s really taken off. More than 1,100 riders have now recorded their own names!\u201d<\/p>\n Riders record themselves, guaranteeing accurary<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just the famous riders who have the handy guides.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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\u2019s become a bit of a trend, with others eager not to be left behind,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been exciting to see it grow and start becoming a real resource for both fans and commentators alike.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, former pro Robbie MacEwan, an Aussie, was saying how helpful the feature was recently while doing commentary with Been during \u00c9toile de Bess\u00e8ges on Flobikes.com.<\/a><\/p>\n Furthemore, Been told Canadian Cycling Magazine that the feature is extraordinarily helpful\u2014and a very good thing.<\/p>\n \u201cI find it important as a person and as a cycling commentator to pronounce someone\u2019s name correctly. Your name is the most unique thing you have,\u201d she said. \u201cOf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n You can check out the new feature right beside the riders\u2019 names on ProCyclingStats.com.<\/a><\/p>\n
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