{"id":174433,"date":"2025-10-02T04:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/174433\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T04:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T04:54:11","slug":"rest-in-peace-photographer-cor-vos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/174433\/","title":{"rendered":"Rest in Peace Photographer Cor Vos"},"content":{"rendered":"

World-renowned cycling photographer Cor Vos passed away suddenly on Tuesday morning at the age of 77. The Rotterdam native was an icon in the cycling peloton. Cor and his wife Carla \u2013 aka the Cor Vos agency have been our primary source for amazing race images since 2002.<\/p>\n

\"cor
Cor Vos with Tom Dumoulin<\/p>\n

Cor Vos began his career as an amateur cyclist himself, later combining his passions for cycling and photography. Over the years, Vos became a well-known figure in the cycling world. In 1975, he founded his own press agency and for 35 years he was active in events such as the Tour de France from his motorcycle. On Tuesday morning, Vos suddenly fell ill and died in the hospital. He planned to retire in 2026 and travel with his wife Carla.<\/p>\n

PEZCycling News founder and publisher, Richard Pestes: \u201cHe was the first legit cycling photographer to agree to work with us. So we stuck with him ever since. I think it\u2019s been over 22 years. I met him at de Ronde in 2007(?) and then got to know him and his wife Carla over the years. Cor was from that generation that knew a different version of cycle sport than we do now. He started as.a photographer shooting film in black and white. <\/p>\n

He was for me typically Dutch \u2013 that is very direct. It\u2019s a trait we North Americans sometimes confuse as rudeness, which is a misunderstanding.\u00a0 But I always knew where I stood with Cor \u2013 there was never any bs.\u00a0 He was always loyal and treated us better than almost any other client I\u2019ve worked with. Through the past few years of declining brand support for cycling media, Cor always worked with us and never denied us access to his vast catalogue of amazing images. He was a top class operator, and is a major loss to cycling media.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"cor<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The History Behind Cor Vos
The Rotterdam native\u2019s name is synonymous with beautiful cycling photos. He has been a household name in cycling since the 1970s, even now that he\u2019s no longer on the bike himself. Together with his wife Carla, he ran his photo press agency. He sent photographers all over the world and, from behind his computer, updated his database daily. And when there were no competitions, he scanned his old film and slide images to add to his vast digital archive..<\/p>\n

\"cor
Cor Vos with World champion Gerrie Knetemann<\/p>\n

Cor Vos himself has a cycling background. \u201cI was a racer, nothing special. I rode criteriums and short tours. But you need those to fill a peloton; you can\u2019t just have winners. In 1968, the year Jan Janssen won the Tour de France, I crashed. Severe brain damage. That ended my career immediately. After that, I didn\u2019t do anything for at least five years. Then I started taking photos. I\u2019d never held a camera before, when I went to watch another club race. I\u2019d bought a Russian camera\u2014I still have it\u2014and I started experimenting. I never took a course; I taught myself everything. Self-taught, they call it. I also taught myself how to develop on location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vos experienced his first Tour de France as a photographer in 1975. Not yet on a motorcycle. \u201cBut if you want to be right in the thick of the race, that\u2019s a prerequisite. So I went to race director Felix L\u00e9vitan with a journalist who spoke French. We said: \u2018There are more and more Dutch successes, it\u2019s time we let a Dutch photographer ride the bike.\u2019 The following year, I was bike number seven. That\u2019s how many photographers were in the race back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cor realised he started at a good time. There wasn\u2019t much competition yet. And with the arrival of the TI Raleigh team, Dutch successes increased. \u201cFor the first two years, I rode with a French motorcyclist. He\u2019s now 93, and I still send him a Christmas card. But I didn\u2019t speak French, so I started looking for a Dutch motorcyclist. That turned out to be Joop Zijlaard, Michael\u2019s father and Leontien\u2019s father-in-law. After six years, he quit, and it was only then that I realised he\u2019d always driven for me without a license! A good motorcyclist is so important. It accounts for at least forty percent of the photo\u2019s quality. If I yell \u2018stop,\u2019 he doesn\u2019t have to drive another hundred meters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hoogvliet
Moto driver Joop Zijlaard<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

At one point, Cor got so busy that he hired a photographer. \u201cAnd then another, and another. I arranged the car, bought the cameras, and paid all the travel expenses. Joop Zijlaard warned me: \u2018Cor, you\u2019ll teach monkeys to climb, and at some point they\u2019ll throw a coconut at your head.\u2019 That\u2019s happened before, but most of them have been taking photos for me for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advent of digital photography not only meant a shift in Cor\u2019s working methods, but also a redefined role for him. \u201cAfter a hundred kilometres of racing, I\u2019d take the cards out of the cameras and go to the press room. At some point, I thought: I\u2019ll save a lot of money if I stay home and organise everything from Hoogvliet.\u201d He rode his motorcycle less and less often, the last time being when the Tour de France started in Rotterdam in 2010.<\/p>\n

\"cor
Hard at work<\/p>\n

Cor had a good eye for a great cycling photo. \u201cI\u2019ve been completely blind in my right eye since birth. Oh well, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.\u201d Cor at 75, had no intention of quitting. \u201cI still enjoy it too much, and I have the responsibility for several employees. But becoming the richest man in the cemetery doesn\u2019t make much sense either. So my wife says: just keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone at PEZ Cycling News sends their condolences to the Vos family and friends.<\/p>\n

\"cor
Tour de France 2010 \u2013 Cor Vos with Tour director Christian Prudhomme<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

# Thanks to WielerFlits for the history and quotes. #<\/p>\n


\n Like PEZ? Why not subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive updates and reminders on what’s cool in road cycling? \n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World-renowned cycling photographer Cor Vos passed away suddenly on Tuesday morning at the age of 77. The Rotterdam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[78061,4985,242,28835,2285,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-174433","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cor-vos","9":"tag-cycling","10":"tag-features","11":"tag-now-on-pez","12":"tag-obituary","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}