Of all the nations in cycling, the Netherlands is hardly crying out for a fresh generation of star riders right now, with the Dutch enjoying a golden period at the top of the women’s peloton.
Demi Vollering reigns supreme as the world’s best Grand Tour rider, while Lorena Wiebes is sweeping all before her in the sprints. Elsewhere, Karlijn Swinkels, Anna van der Breggen, Charlotte Kool, and Mischa Bredewold also rank among the world’s best riders.
But the conveyor belt of talent rolls on and riders including Tour de France mountain classification winner Puck Pieterse, SD Worx climber Nienke Vinke, and Visma-Lease a Bike sprinter Nienke Veenhoven look primed to join those already established stars at the top of the sport.
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22-year-old Veenhoven is already angling to usurp Wiebes. She’s in the midst of her fourth season as a professional and is enjoying her best campaign yet with four wins across the Volta a Catalunya and Baloise Ladies Tour.
She’s battled Wiebes at a series of races throughout the season, including at the UAE Tour, the Classics, and, most recently, the Tour of Britain Women. How has it been going head-to-head with the greatest, and trying to overcome her?
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“We try to do some different things sometimes to try to find how we can beat her maybe one day. But yeah, until now we didn’t find it yet, but I hope in upcoming years we will find it,” Veenhoven told Cyclingnews at the recent Tour of Britain Women.
“That’s the goal – to reach it and to make it a bit harder for her maybe to win. I think that’s the mindset we start the season with and we end the season with. So I think it’s a good mindset, and afterwards, we can be realistic if it was good or not.”
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Veenhoven, who hails from Oostzaan just a half-hour drive from Wiebes’ hometown of Mijdrecht, has finished ahead of her once this season, sprinting to third at the Ronde van Brugge as Wiebes finished ninth.
She’s achieved great success elsewhere. Veenhoven’s top result of spring was second at Scheldeprijs, while she and Marianne Vos also finished one-two on the opening day in Catalunya.
At the Baloise Ladies Tour, she got the better of the far more experienced Kool and Gladys Verhulst-Wild in a trio of sprint stages. She’s certainly taken a major step forward in her career progress this season, a position she agreed with.
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“The season for me has been good actually this year. I’m making some good developments in my development, so I’m really happy about that,” Veenhoven said, before talking about how Vos and her team have helped that development.
“It’s really nice to have that kind of experience in the team, and you learn so much from them in and out of the race. So yeah, it’s really cool to have that in the team.”
Veenhoven may not have got the better of Wiebes yet – a sixth and a fourth were her top results in Britain as she reaches the end of a long season, but her team are clearly putting their trust in her for the upcoming seasons.
The Dutch squad announced on Wednesday that they had signed Maike van der Duin from Canyon-SRAM in a move that strengthens their lead-out train. 24-year-old Van der Duin is a proven fast finisher and a strong Classics rider, and she joins on a two-year deal.
Visma-Lease a Bike manager Rutger Tijssen reaffirmed that notion and stated that Van der Duin can help Veenhoven in the sprints.
“With Nienke, we have one of the biggest sprint talents in the peloton and over the coming years we want to continue building our sprint train around her,” he said.
“Maike brings speed, experience and race intelligence, and fits that ambition perfectly. We are convinced that she can be of great value in supporting our sprint project. We see a huge amount of potential in Maike and have every confidence that she will become an important part of our sprint train in the years to come.”
Van der Duin is enthusiastic about the idea. Upon signing with the team, she said that she’s looking forward to developing as a lead-out rider and working with Veenhoven.
“My ambition mainly lies in the lead-out role. I want to specialise further in that area, gain more experience and, together with Nienke, build a strong sprint train. At the same time, I want to continue developing myself, race more and play an increasingly important role in finals,” she said.
With a quick new lead-out rider on board, expert guidance from a rider like Vos, and confidence and wins piling up, Nienke Veenhoven is one to watch.
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