Its been a while in coming, but the Dutch are coming back.
As a kid I grew up watching John-Paul Van Poppel dominate sprints whilst the twins, Gert-Jan Theunisse and Steven Rooks soared through the mountains.
Greg LeMond won the most exciting Tour in history in 1989 but one of the best stages for me was the mountain time trial to Orcieres Merlette where Rook won.
It was in part down to those two that Alp D’Huez was christened the “Dutch Mountain”.
Despite a few false dawns recently the golden era seems to be returning.
We had Tom Dumoulin going close in the Vuelta last season before an equally late race collapse by Steven Kruijswijk in the Giro. Bauke Mollema was up there in the Tour de France and despite also faltering in the final days the trend was still up.
I think we will see a grand Tour winner flying the horizontal tricolour before we do that of a Frenchman, but it will be close.
The old country’s are coming back into cycling rapidly and we had better watch out.
Fendrien 